


Casual Chaos

by jaebirdbluetheawesome (GreyAreaSystem)



Series: Jae Does Maribat [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Maribat - Fandom, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Bashing, Alya Césaire Bashing, F/F, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, It's implied but it's not really there, Kwami Swap, Like Heavily Implied, Lila Rossi Bashing, M/M, No Smut, Salt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 59
Words: 82,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26035273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyAreaSystem/pseuds/jaebirdbluetheawesome
Summary: Marinette doesn't want to be here. Nobody likes her. That's what she thinks, anyway.Damian Wayne doesn't want her here either. But he's stuck watching out for her.Jon thinks she's cool, if a bit sketchy. That ring certainly is NOT opal like she says...But after multiple strange incidents that leave everyone a bit confused, Damian makes a very awkward decision: She's stuck being his friend whether she likes it or not.Marinette was not prepared for the flashbacks that would come with seeing someone in a mask.Robin looked absolutely nothing like any hero she had ever worked with, or any villain she was against, but still.She saw a man in a mask and reflexively punched him in the nose.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne
Series: Jae Does Maribat [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877605
Comments: 1095
Kudos: 1617





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it take a while but trust me, it gets there.

Marnette was pissed. 

Why was she pissed, you ask?

She was sitting on a plane. 

And why would sitting on a plane make her pissed?

Because it wasn’t her choice.

 _You always have a choice, Adrien,_ She had told her ex. 

A lot of good her own words did for herself, it seemed. 

_Those are your two options? A lab rat or a dancing monkey? You were meant for more than this, you know._

Her favorite quote, ironically. 

From Captain America, the First Avenger. 

She liked that movie because she related to Steve on a comical level. 

He was given a choice. He chose to help people. She was given a choice. She chose to help people. 

Until she couldn’t help people anymore. 

When she became a high-risk for Akma’s, she had to learn how to be able to shut her emotions off. 

But the secret to neutrality is you can’t only shut off the bad sides, you have to shut off the good sides too. 

She felt no pain when she woke up in the morning, but she felt no joy either.

She felt nothing all the time. 

Adrien saw her going through the motions, and tried to make her happy. 

He tried so hard to help her through her problems. She tried to help him back. 

And for a while, it almost worked. Until he got greedy.

That stupid cat knew the rules, and he broke them. He forced her to live out the consequences of his own actions. 

And now she sat on a plane, glowering out the window, pissed as hell. 

Actually, wait, that didn’t really explain things at all. 

Let’s take it back a little further.

Let’s bring it back to how the dumb cat ruined everything. 

After a particularly vicious akuma, he followed her home. Creepily. Like an asshole. 

He found out her identity, but didn’t tell her. He used this information to get closer to her as Marinette. 

He played both sides of her with both sides of him, and it pissed her off when she found out after he made a mistake. 

She found out he knew, and he got akumatized after she wasn’t ‘grateful’ that he was obsessed with her. 

She cried for three days before managing to take the ring from him. 

Then she used a spell to make him forget about her being Ladybug. 

So she went back to being emotionless. 

Blank, emotionless, friendless, nothing. 

She felt like nothing. 

Lila told her she was nothing, and she believed it. 

She felt truly empty.

But that still doesn’t explain the plane. 

No, she felt like nothing, because she _needed_ to.

She _needed_ to feel nothing so she could work on fighting the bag guys and taking them down. 

And without the ignorant cat in the way, she actually… managed to get some work done. 

She backtracked the akuma to Hawkmoth, discovered his identity, kicked his ass, _without_ the ring (but _with_ Chloé), and took the pin and the brooch home. 

She went home, de-transformed on her roof, and cried. 

She cried, letting out all the emotions she built up over the course of three years, all at once, and she didn’t stop crying for nearly a day and a half. 

Her parents brought her to a therapist. 

She spent the whole half an hour glaring at the woman in question. 

They brought her back again, and she spoke a sum total of seven words. 

Eventually, the therapist figured out her problem was Lila. 

And suggested her parents send her to school somewhere else. 

Jagge Stone had caught wind of this, his being her unofficial Uncle and all, and suggested a fancy private school and he had a friend in the city who could pull some strings to get her in.

Her parents initially declined, they couldn;t afford it, they didn’t want to use his money, it was a dangerous city, but after a few more mental breakdowns from Marinette, they finally accepted. 

And THAT was how she was sitting on a plane. 

Glaring out the window.

A large box in her backpack, blue earrings in her ears, and a ring on a thin chain around her neck. 

* * *

Just like how the Multi-Mouse necklace had transformed from a pendant to a coin, the Chat Noir ring changed from Adrien’s silver ring to a white milky opal. 

She had taken out the Ladybug earrings, but since she was the guardian, she didn’t need a miraculous to be able to see the Kwamis. 

She saw Tikki every day, as well as all the others, and they felt almost guilty as they watched her go through her process alone. 

She twisted the ring on it’s chain as she stared down at the choppy waves of the ocean underneath her, frowning. 

She didn’t want to go, really. 

_Why would I want to stay in that hellhole?_

She hated how willing they were to take her from her life.

_What life? I had nothing there._

She didn’t want to start over.

_And lose what, exactly?_

Ok, so maybe she wasn’t as mad as she wanted to be.

She was mad not at her parents, not because she was leaving anything behind, but she was still mad. 

She was mad that she could change something about herself so much and basically nothing and no one would be affected by her loss. 

She was pissed beyond belief that no one would miss her. 

Her phone buzzed.

Ok, so maybe not _no one_.

**Guitar Bitch** : You arrive alive?

**Motherfucker:** haven’t arrived at all.

**Guitar Bitch:** oh. My bad. I’ll check in again in a few minutes.

**Motherfucker:** Hour and a half.

**Guitar Bitch:** ok. I’ll check in in an hour and half.

Luka was transferring to a college near her ‘highschool’ she had been told to call it. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad after all. 

* * *

“A friend of mine is sending his niece to Gotham Academy, and you need to play nice.” Damian scoffed at his father's words. If it was the niece of one of his business friends, he was completely sure she was _not_ worth his time.

“Play nice? What am I, seven?”

“No, you’re seventeen, and you need to get along with her because my friend says she’s a trauma victim and you need to make sure she doesn’t do something stupid.”

“Oh, so I’m a babysitter?”

“No, you need to be her friend, and make sure-”

“Whatever.” He didn’t listen to the rest of the sentence as he stormed out. 

He made his way around the city as Robin that night, along with Grayson as his Batman, and he was in a slightly less good mood. 

He spotted a girl in a black hoodie and black plaid skirt scowling as she made her way down the sidewalk, but he also noticed the man behind her following her. 

“Evening, sir, may I ask where you’re going?” He dropped down in between them. The asshole and the girl. 

The man panicked, and turned to walk in the other direction, but got stopped by Batman. Who decked him in the head. 

The man was out cold. 

Robin turned to check on the girl, and saw her giving him a fearful blank stare. 

“Is there anything I can do for-” He never finished his sentence. She punched him in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it took 8,000+ hits for someone to point out I spelled Damian wrong in the first chapter.   
> Thanks guys.   
> Appreciate it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only Damian would find it interesting to hack into the school to read her letters of recommendation.

Marinette was not prepared for the flashbacks that would come with seeing someone in a mask. 

He looked absolutely nothing like any hero she had ever worked with, but still. 

She saw a man in a mask and reflectively punched him in the nose. 

“What the hell?” Was his only response. She went to apologize, but her mouth moved before her brain did, and she said, 

“Fuck you.”  _ WAIT NO THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT TO SAY- _

“Me excuse?” The Batman recoiled at her reaction. 

“I don’t owe you shit.” She growled, pulled her hood over her head, and continued her walk back to the international student dorms she was staying in. 

That was not the normal reaction Robin was used to. 

His nose was throbbing, when she gave him a somewhat angry look. _ What the hell did I do to- _

“Fuck you.” She growled, and he wondered who she was, and if she was working for someone. She was probably mad he threw off her investigation of some sort by taking out a target, but then she confused him further by saying, 

“I don’t owe you shit.” He noticed her thick accent, and his brain ran a mile a minute trying to come up with all the possible reasons she could be pissed. 

-He ruined her investigation

-she was a villain who he had stopped before.

-She had family/friends/acquaintances he had stopped before.

-she had a bad experience with vigilante's before.

-he really didn’t have much more than that. 

She threw her hood over her head, and walked away. 

But Robin would tell by the way she moved her head she was watching his shadow. She was making sure he didn’t follow her. 

As badly as that made him want to follow her, maybe his last bullet point was her reason and he needed to leave her her distance. Or just be more sneaky. 

Later, at the Batcave, a thought occurred to him. 

“Hey, Father, you know that babysitting job you’re making me do?” He asked sarcastically.

“Marinette is not a  _ babysitting job _ , Damian, that is disrespectful-”

“Thanks.” That was all he needed. A first name. “Appreciate it.” He ran up the stairs, and to his room to start his investigation. 

He hacked into GA, opened the new transfer files, and looked for a Marinette.

He found one. 

Marinette Dupain-Cheng, child of bakers, only child, and there was no way her parents made enough to send her to GA.

Ah, Uncle, right. 

Except her tuition was coming from a… Jared Stone. 

Huh.

He searched her on social media platforms. 

She didn’t seem to have any. She didn’t  _ seem  _ to have any.

He dug around, hacking more things than he probably should have, and came up with nothing. 

Maybe she really had nothing. 

Weird. Most teenage girls had social media.

He looked into her letters of recommendation. He knew it was weird, wanting to know what her teachers thought of her, but still.

He wanted to know why she was so… what did his after say? A trauma victim?

He wanted to know more about why she was so weird. If her traumatic tendencies could count as ‘weirdness’. 

He opened the first one, by a Mme. Mendeleive. 

_ Marinette Dupain-Cheng is one of the brightest students I’ve ever met, even if a bit oddly so. _ Oddly so? 

_ She seems to know everything about her classmates' lives, even though she never asks and they never tell. She is brilliant for the way she knows everything about everyone simply by making inferences based on her surroundings. _ Certainly sounds like a trauma symptom to me. 

_ One instance of how she manages to do this without asking too many questions was the time she managed to figure out every little detail about her own surprise party simply because of a friend's misplaced bicycle pump. She figured out the pump was for balloons since she had recalled her friend pumping her bike two days prior and therefore didn’t need air. She figured out the time based on her knowledge of her bestfriends dental history, she figured out the whole party playlist based on her friend listening to one song, and the guest list based on one conversation about dentists. _ Ok, this girl was certified strange.

_ She has an incredible memory, and puts it to use to accomplish just about anything she wants to _ . A weirdo,  _ and _ a Slytherine. What an awful combination. 

He read on.

  
  
  


She stared at the tiny room she had been assigned to. 

There was no way she could get a sufficient amount of designing done, there wasn’t enough space. She just barely was able to fit her bare necessities in, her sewing machine and her tote of fabric, what was going to happen when she needed a mannequin and a room to measure and cut and-

“Hey, you’re new.” A voice popped up behind her. She turned, and gave them her best neutral look. “I was wondering when I’d get a roommate. I guess it took a whole month.”

It wasn’t for lack of trying. 

It’s not like she actively wanted to be the person she was when she was miserable, she wanted to get better, but she couldn’t help but yell at everyone all the time. 

‘Everyone’ being Robin and ‘all the time’ being once. 

But still the fact that she had tried and failed to be nice to someone was… concerning. 

“I am Marinette.” She felt herself becoming more and more like Kagami every day. She wondered how her best friend would feel about that.

“I’m Bella.” The girl nodded at her, and stuck out a hand. “I’m from London, my mum sent me here because I was being bullied a lot.”

“Paris. Same.”

“Really?” The girl looked at her quizzically.

“Yup.” She sighed, and went back to her unpacking she had abandoned in favor of taking a walk to the nearest grocery store to get Kwami snacks. 

She wondered how awful it would be having her around, unable to talk to Plagg very much.

“I can understand if you don’t want to talk about your problems, but… Can I ask you a question somewhat personal for both of us?” She froze. What the hell did that mean?

“Uh… sure?” How bad could it be?

“If you look at me, can you tell why I was bullied?” She gave the girl a confusing look, and then a quick once-over. 

“No?” She didn’t want to ask, but…

“Really?” The girl reacted positively to this. “You really can’t?”

“No? Is there something wrong with you?” She tried not to sound judgy. Just curious.

“Yeah!” She sounded slightly proud. “Something was very wrong with me! And then I fixed it! And if you can’t tell what was wrong, that means I fixed it very well!”

“Oh.” Marinette nodded. “Congratulations, then?”

“Thank you! Very much!” Bella twirled in her skirt, and flopped down on her bed across from Marinette’s. 

“You’re welcome.” But a few moments passed, and she couldn’t but wonder. “Was it a stutter?” She turned and asked her.

“Nope!” Bella giggled. 

“A birthmark?”

“No! Well, kinda… but not really.”

“A surgical scar?”

“Uh, I have them, but from after the fact.”

“A tumor? Cancer? A disease?”

“Uh, not really.”

“A cist?”

“Definitely not.”

“Well what was it then?” Bella pursed her lips. 

“I… um…” She fidlled with her skirt. Suddenly, it hit her what it was. 

“You know Bella, I don’t think I took the opportunity to ask you what your pronouns were.” She asked casually. “You may be here in the girls dorm, but you never know.”

“She/her.” Bella responded quietly.

“Thank you, Bella.” She nodded, and tried not to notice the girl blush. “You look beautiful in that skirt, by the way, where did you get it?”

  
  


As she was almost asleep, her phone lit up with a text from Kagami.

**I’mAGamiBear** : Yo guess what

**Motherfucker** : what

**I’mAGamiBear:** Remember that american fencing competition I got invited to like six months ago?

**Motherfucker:** Yeah?

**I’mAGamiBear:** it’s being held in the stadium at your new school.

**Motherfucker:** !!!!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who didn't catch on, Bella is a transwoman.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit gets intense starting now.

She met Jon the next day. He was tasked with showing her around. 

“Hey!” He smiled at her, and she immediately lost all of her nerves, which was a little suspicious. 

“Hi.” She nodded at him, feeling instantly strangely comfortable. He had a really nice smile.

“I’m Jon Kent, and I'm gonna show you all of your classes during homeroom so we don’t lose any time.”

“Fun.” She nodded once.

“What’s your schedule?” She handed him a piece of paper. “Ooh, we have science together period one. And the same lunch, so if you want, you can sit with me.”

“Ok.” Was all she responded with.  _ He’s gonna think you're a bitch if you keep this up, you know. You have to start talking at some point _ . “This is much appreciated.”  _ No not like that, dumbass.  _

“Awe, thanks!” He didn’t seem to find her strange. That was good. 

They walked around, him telling her all about the various classes they had, his opinions on the teachers, and whatever else. 

She tried to keep eye contact with him, remembering from Before She Was A Bitch that that was important, as he talked, until he faltered, staring at her neck. 

“What?” She frowned. 

“Uh, you’re necklace.” He frowned at her. “Where did you get it?”

“Oh, uh, it’s, an, um,” She panicked, “It’s technically a ring, but I sew a lot, so the ring would get caught on the needles, so I put it on a chain, but, um…”

“Yeah, but where did you  _ get _ it?”

“I got it from my old martial arts instructor.” She bullshitted. “He was like a grandfather to me, and when he passed he left this to me.” 

“What material is it?”

“Opal?”

“You don’t sound sure about that.”

“It’s opal.” She forced a laugh.

“Huh.” Jon didn’t sound like he believed her, but let it go. “So, anyway, this is where we have our first class.” He opened the door, and let her in. “Looks like Damians not here today, or he would have been here by now.” Jon showed her to the back of the classroom. “You can sit in his seat. 

“Cool.” She was sitting at her half of the desk when someone dropped a backpack on top of her notebook. Ten minutes later. 

“You’re in my seat. Move.” She scowled at the backpack, and looked up to see that he wasn’t even looking at her. He was looking at his phone.  _ What an asshole. _

He snapped his fingers, pointed at her, and then made a jerking motion with his thumb.

The whole class seemed to be holding their breath. 

She narrowed her eyes, and stared at him until he noticed she wasn’t moving. 

“Hey, what’s the problem, are you-” He stopped when he finally noticed the murderous look in her eyes.

“Did you just  _ snap _ at me?” She snarled. 

“Uh…” He didn’t have anything to say after that.

Without breaking eye contact, she put a hand on her notebook to hold it in place while she pushed his backpack onto the floor. Plagg would be proud of that move.

“Oops.” She said sweetly, not matching her facial expression at all, and he just picked his bag up, picking a different place to sit. 

“Holy shit, Ice Prince has competition.” Someone in the third row whispered. 

“Are we gonna have a problem?” She yelled at them, and they ducked. “That’s what I fucking thought.”

* * *

She was in his class. 

She was in his class and he made her mad. 

She was in his class and he made her mad and she probably hated him and now  _ many _ people were going to kill him. His father included. 

Why did he have to be such an asshole? God, this was a disaster. 

He turned around to see her whispering with his best friend. 

_ That one’s mine, bitch, get your own _ , he thought at her. Obviously she didn’t get the message. 

He wished he had Jon’s super hearing right now. What he wouldn’t give to know what she was thinking of him right now. 

She was happily eating a package of fruit snacks at lunch until he sat down across from her. She paused, the fruit snack halfway between the package and her mouth. She closed her mouth, and set the gummy back down. 

He sighed inwardly, and tried his best not to make things worse. 

“Marinette, Damian, Damian, Marinette.” Jon waved his hand between them. 

“I figured.” She made no attempt to greet him. He narrowed his eyes at her. 

“What the hell does that mean?”

“He said I could sit in his ‘friend Damian’s seat since he was gone’ and since you’re the asshole who _ aggressively _ claimed it as yours, that means you are the same person.” She shoved three fruit snacks in her mouth, and reached for a fork. “I’m not an idiot, I can play a simple game of  _ Connect The Dots _ .” 

“I didn’t say you were an idiot, how was I supposed to know that Jon told you it was my seat, I mean honestly-” She pointed the fork at him, and he stopped. Why did he stop? 

“So, anyway, Mari, I was thinking-” Jon tried to lighten the conversation, but she turned the icy glare onto him. 

“Don’t call me that.” She growled. He hesitated. 

“Ok.” He nodded. “What would you like me to call you, then?”

“My name is Marinette. That is what you can say. That is _ the only _ name you can say.”

“Ok. I’m sorry, and I should have asked first.” Marinette blinked. She clearly didn’t expect him to be nice about it. That sucked. 

“What?” She didn’t look like she wanted to say that. She looked like she was ready for him to put up a fight.

“What do you mean what?”

“You aren’t… going to demand an explanation of me?” She sounded extremely confused.  _ Who the hell hurt her? _

“I respect you and your decisions, Marinette, I’m not going to make you explain why someone hurt you. I’m not gonna do that to you.” Jon rolled his eyes. 

“Oh.” Damian saw tears start to form in her eyes, and he made himself look busy looking at the ceiling. “I have to go to the bathroom.” She stood up, and hurried off.

“Other direction.” Damian didn’t look at her as he said this. She stopped. “Bathrooms the other direction.”

“Fuck you.” She didn’t sound like she meant it this time, and he considered that progress.

“We need to talk about Marinette.” Jon said as soon as they were sure she was gone.

“Yeah, no shit, Father gave me  _ specific _ instructions not to let anything bad happen to her, and  _ I  _ ended up being the bad thing that happened to her. I swear to god this only happens to _ me _ .”

“What?” Jon narrowed his eyes at him.

“Yeah, it was really weird, he said she was the niece of one of his friends and she was some sort of trauma victim and GA is supposed to be some sort of fresh start or something.” He hadn’t picked up on Jon’s nervousness yet. 

“WE friend or… other types of friends?” Damian paused. 

“What prompted that question?” He asked slowly, remembering the events of the night before. 

“Did you notice her ring?”

“You don’t think she’s a… part of the core?”

“Not the core, something else entirely. Something… just  _ else _ .” Jon fidgeted nervously, and Damian felt the blood run out of his face. 

“I didn’t ask. I’ll have to ask.” He went back to his lunch, his mind racing. 

When Marinete came back, Damian resisted the urge to ask too many questions. 

“So, Marinette, you mentioned this morning that you don’t wear your ring because you sew a lot.”

“Yeah.” Her voice cracked, and they both pretended not to notice. “I sew clothes, mostly. But it’s hard to do so here in such tiny dorms.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I used to work for the designer brand Gabriel, until… Uh...” He hadn’t seen that online. 

“Really?” He blinked at her. 

“Until what?”

“Until he got exposed.” She mumbled. 

“For what?”

“Let’s talk about something else.” She hunched her shoulders. He wondered how the hell the girl who had been terrifying enough to rival his own was shaking like she was about to break. 

“What’s your favorite breakfast food?” Damian blurted out. Where did that come from?

“Hot chocolate and croissants.” She gave him a funny look. Like she hadn’t expected him to be civil, or something.

“Have any hobbies other than sewing?” Jon tried. 

“Eh. I like watching fencing as a hobby, I guess.”

“Really?”

“Damian fences, maybe you two can bond over that. Somehow.”

“Do you have a favorite fencer you like watching?” Damian ignored Jon’s dumb comment.

“Yeah, there’s some sort of competition going on here next month, I’m pretty excited about watching Kagami Tsurugi.” She gave a soft smile.

He had to admit, she had a nice smile.

“Wait, Tsurugi is your favorite?” He knew who she was. She was actually coming to the competition his father was hosting?

“Yeah, you got a problem with that?” Her smile was gone.

“No, I just thought if you had a favorite person to watch, it wouldn’t be someone as cliché as the girl with the famous fencing bloodline.” She gave him a blank stare for a few seconds until she burst into laughter.

“What?” Jon was very lost in this conversation. 

“Yeah, I’ll make sure to tell her you said that.” Damian choked on his salad, 

“You know her?” He didn’t know that either. 

That was why he hated it when people didn’t have social media. 

“Yes. I do. Better than anyone else in the world, in fact.” She deadpanned. 

“How?”

“She asked me questions. I answered them. I found out her favorite juice was orange juice, I had some orange juice at my house. She’s the one who taught  _ me _ how to fence but I didn't really have the time to go to D'Argencourt Academy, so she taught me at home instead.”

“You can fence?” Jon tried to continue the conversation. 

“Yes.”

“Well why did you say you watch it as a hobby, instead of, you know, saying you fence?” Jon teased her. 

“I have a job to keep up with, I don’t really…” She didn’t finish her sentence. 

“Well, that’s what you like, what are your dislikes?” She didn’t have the chance to answer before the bell rang. 

“Next time.” She promised. “Tomorrow, I will bitch to you about all the things I hate.”

“Can’t wait!” Jon gave her finger guns, and she kept a dead expression as she winked and made a clicking noise with her tongue. Jon laughed, and they went their separate ways. 

* * *

“Mind telling me more about this babysitting job?”

“Why, because I heard from your teacher today. Apparently, you caused quite the ruckus in science.” Damian cringed, and almost wished he would go back to being the Absent Father so he would stop messing with his life. 

“She sat in my chair and it made me mad.”

“Let me guess, she cried and disappeared?”

“No.” For some reason, this surprised him. “She threw my backpack, and scared me into sitting in a different seat.”

“Oh? From what I heard, she had a habit of crying randomly.”

“Off topic!” Damian slammed his hands down on the table. “What friend told you about her?”

“Why is that of concern?”

“She hates Robin, that’s why it’s of concern.” Bruce pinched his nose.

“Did you  _ seriously _ ask her about her opinion on-”

“No, she punched me in the face.” This seemed to catch him off-guard. 

“I’m beginning to think she may not be exactly like Jared said she was…”

“Jared?”

“Stone. Jagged, his fans call him.” Oh. 

“So not a hero? Or vigilante?”

“Why would that be an option? Why do you ask?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He rubbed his chin as he walked out, confusing the hell out of his father. 

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STOP SAYING ROBIN DESERVED IT, MY POINT WAS TRYING TO SHOW YOU THAT SHE HAS TRAUMA BUILT IN FROM HER TIME AS LADYBUG AND SINCE MOST OF HER TEAM BETRAYED HER SHE HAS IT BUILD INTO HER THAT PEOPLE WITH MASKS ARE BAD PEOPLE NO MATTER WHAT SIDE THEY CLAIM TO BE ON SO SHE PANIC-PUNCHED ROBIN BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT HE WOULD BE NO BETTER THAN ALL OF THE OTHER TEAMMATES WHO HURT HER. ROBIN IS INNOCENT.

Damian figured if his father didn’t understand, and if Jon and him were the only people who found something off about her, they would have to worm it out of her somehow.

_ No, don’t do that, she needs space _

_ Yeah, but somethings weird about her. I want to know what it is. _

_ Space! _

_ Answers! _

_ She needs to be respected! _

_ And I want- _

“Damian? Are you ok?” Marinette was sitting in his seat. Again. 

But this time, there was another seat. On the other side of her. 

She had stolen another chair, and was sitting in between them. “I’m sorry.” He blurted out.  _ Good. We can use this to get close to her, and then she’ll trust us enough to tell us her secrets.  _

_ Shut up. That’s rude. Grayson said so. _

“No you’re not.” She shook her head at him.

“What?” He recoiled, still not sitting down.

“You’re not sorry.” She repeated. She patted the chair next to her, and he hesitantly sat down. 

“No, I heard, you, but… what?” He blinked. 

“You yelled at me, and you had no remorse in your eyes when you did it. You only regret what you did when you assessed me as a threat. You aren’t sorry, or you wouldn’t be if I hadn’t fought back. If I hadn’t refused to leave, you wouldn’t be apologizing right now.” She gave him a blank expression, and he realised she was right. “You aren’t sorry. You aren’t sorry at all.” Damn, she was  _ good _ . He should stick her in a room with Drake someday, maybe they could solve some of the worlds most difficult cases.

“... Sorry for not being sorry?”

“Whatever.” He finally sat down, and Jon came in moments later, smiling at the emotionally dead duo. 

* * *

Lunch finally came around, and Damian could not be more excited to hear her bitch about things so he could maybe find a way to direct it to heroes and by association vigilante’s. 

“So, what do you hate?” He smirked at her. 

“Why do I feel like you're only asking so you can make me miserable on purpose?”

“Why would I do that?” He hesitated for a second. 

“Why wouldn’t you do that?” She countered. Jon blinked at her. 

“Marinette, do you hate us?” He asked randomly. She frowned at him. 

“Why would I hate you?”

“You hate  _ me. _ ” Damian grumbled. 

“Yeah, but I don’t hate Jon, and Jon said ‘us’ so technically, no, I don’t hate you collectively, I just dislike Damian.”

“Rude.”

“You said it, not me.”

“No, you definitely said it, I just said it first.”

“Fine.  _ You said it, and me _ .”

“Yeah, but do you hate… us being around you a lot?” Jon finally interrupted their almost-an-argument. It took her a second to answer.

“I guess I’m just worried you're only being nice to me to look for information, and then try to make everyone hate me.” She shrugged. 

“Why would we do that?” Damian frowned at her. “That’s literally so much work when I could just have someone hack into your police records and fuck them all up.”

“Damian!” Jon hissed at him. 

“Much less work and much better results.” Marinette didn’t answer for a while, just stared at her food. 

“Oh.” was all she said. 

“Do you really think we hate you?” Jon sounded nervous. He had every right to be, they were trying to investigate her. It's hard to investigate someone who hates you.

She took a few deep breaths before saying,

“It’s not that I think you  _ actively _ hate me, it's that my anxiety keeps saying you have  _ potential _ to hate me in the future, like, you haven’t actively disproven dislike for me in a way I can confirm that you actually appreciate my existence.” She came up with. 

It was a lot to process, honestly. 

She wasn’t used to having to face her emotions in a setting where she felt even the slightest bit safe. 

Scratch that, she didn’t face her emotions  _ at all _ .

They didn’t say anything, and she wondered how she ended up with such dumbass friends. 

“I think I just told you more in that twenty seconds than I ever had in four months of therapy.”

“What can we do to prove we don’t hate you?” She was surprised it was Damian asking, and not Jon.

Damian didn’t even  _ like  _ her. 

Why would he go out of his way to be  _ nice _ ?

She sensed bullshit. 

“I mean, asking is already the wrong thing. It seems super manipulative. If you want to do something nice for me, make it a surprise, at least.” He nodded, and she inwardly cringed. 

“Cool.” 

* * *

“Jon, I think you have a type.” Bella laughed as they sat on the floor doing homework. 

“A type?” Jon frowned up at her. 

“Dark hair, dark clothes, dark eyes, angsty, and brooding.” Bella waved her hand between Marinette and Damian. 

“Shut up.” Both of them said at the same time. Then they glared at each other. 

“Oh my god Bells, you are  _ SO  _ right,  _ I DO _ have a type.” He teased them further. They both groaned, and made ugly faces at each other. 

“I ship it.” Bella nodded before she walked out, leaving the trio alone. 

“Ship my ass.” Marinette growled. 

“I’ll stick your ass in a box and ship it back to Paris.”

“If it gets me away from you, gladly.” They went back to working in silence. 

“You know, we never did get around to the dislikes today at lunch.” Jon mused.

“Fine.” Marinette grumbled. “I hate Gabriel Agreste, I hate his dumbass son, I hate losing at video games, I hate losing in general, I am a very sore loser, um, I hate waking up early, I hate passion fruit, I hate outfits with too much white, and I hate Chat Noir.”

“What noir?”

“Chat Noir.” She growled. “I hate that asshole.”

“What’s a Chat Noir?”

“Ex-Superhero, until he became such a pain in the ass that he had it get taken off of the team that were taking down Hawkmoth.”

“What the hell is a Hawkmoth?” 

“French supervillain. He had weird psychotic powers that made people go crazy and Ladybug and Chat Noir were supposed to take him down, and I hate them for not being better at it.” He’d have to look into that.

“I’m sure they did the best they could.” Jon tried. She shook her head. 

“Chat Noir was not a good hero. He was more interested in the whole using the temporary magic powers to impress people than actually, you know, using his super powers to actually  _ do  _ anything.”

“What about the other one? Something about a bug?”

“Ladybug.” 

The words were like sand in her mouth. 

Dry dusty sand.

Nasty stuff, that sand.

“She just… let him.” She hated herself for not stopping him sooner. “She saw all the shit Chat Noir was doing, and she just… let him.”

“Huh.” Damian tilted his head at her. “So, do you hate them for it or something?” She wanted to say no. She couldn’t hate Ladybug, she was Ladybug. 

But she hated the decisions Ladybug made. 

“I guess we can add Ladybug to the list of things I hate too. God, I guess I just I just fucking hate superheroes.” They let that sink in for a second, before nodding. 

“Well, just the ones from Paris, or do you hate them all?” Jon, for some reason, sounded very concerned. 

“I don’t have a reason to hate them all, and I guess maybe punching Robin in the face for seemingly no reason was probably a dick move, but still. I have an extreme dislike of assholes with masks.”

“You did what?” Jon grinned at her, and Damian twitched slightly. 

“Yeah, I mean,  _ maybe  _ I should have at least tried to be nice, but, you know, I… I panicked.” She thought about what she had done. 

“You panicked?” She wiggled uncomfortably.

“I hated Chat Noir because I figured out that he was actually one of my old friends and it just made me feel like absolute shit because there he goes, that fucking asshole, ruining Ladybug’s hard work like a dickhead, and it turns out to bo someone at school who kept telling me that my problems were invalid and…” She paused. 

“That’s a valid reason to hate someone.”

“So I guess when you boil it down to it, the reason I hated the heroes from Paris is because… they were gifted powers from some random person, and who is this person to say who gets the powers and who doesn’t? How can we trust that he made a good decision in essentially forcing the entire city to put their faith into two random teenagers to take down some asshole in a purple helmet?”

“That's… that’s a really good point.” Damian nodded, and she felt a little better. “But Robin isn’t one of them, so why did you punch him?”

“One minute I’m walking down the sidewalk, then I hear someone yelling behind me, and I turn around and see someone in a scary-looking hood so  _ excuse me _ if that gave me a terrifying sense of deja-vu from the  _ last _ time.” She drawled sarcastically. 

“Hey quick question, what if it had been Superboy?” Jon asked, and Daminan shot him a strange look.

“What?” She snapped out of her downward spiral, and he nodded. 

“Well, Superboy doesn’t wear a mask, so what if it had been him? Would you have punched him?” She thought about that for a second. 

“I don’t know.” It was the truth, honestly. She really didn’t. 

“Well if you saw Robin again, would you apologize?”

“Oh fuck no.” She grumbled. 

“Why not?”

“Got a reputation to uphold. Put off a scarier-that-you persona, make him stay the hell away from me.”

“Huh.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I had to re-upload this chapter I had to fix it.

**Guitar Bitch:** Marinette why are you lurking in an empty chat?

**Motherfucker** : waiting for you to ask so I know you’re not busy and I’m not interrupting something. 

**Guitar Bitch** : How was your day?

**Motherfucker:** Terrible.

**Guitar Bitch** : How so?

**Motherfucker** : I told them part of the Chat Noir incident.

**Guitar Bitch** : Seriously? It took you months to open up to us aout that, what kind of magic do these guys have?

**Motherfucker** : I’m sorry

**Guitar Bitch** : What no wait

**Guitar Bitch** : That’s not what I meant

**Guitar Bitch:** I’m glad you have found people that you trust there. It is very important to me that you make friends. You need friends. 

**Guitar Bitch:** if I am but a little jealous.

**Motherfucker:** I’m sorry for you being jealous.

**Guitar Bitch** : NOT WHAT I MEANT!!! 

**Motherfucker** : oh.

**Guitar Bitch:** How else did your day go?

**Motherfucker:** Tolerable. 

  
  
  


The next day at school, she overheard plenty of people talking about her. 

She figured they wouldn’t care so much if she was an average new kid, but apparently not being scared of ‘Ice Prince’, they called him, was a big deal. 

She didn’t get why it was a big deal.

He was just an average pain in the ass, not, like, a big deal or anything.

“Well, it may just be a rumor, but I heard she’s only here because some relative of her’s pulled strings to get her accepted.” Some girl who tragically resembled Chloé flipped her hair. She rolled her eyes, and kept walking. It didn’t really even mean anything. The girl didn;t know her situation, it didn’t matter. “And also that Damian’s only being nice to her because her relative and his dad are friends and he actually really hates her.” Wait, what?

She walked into her science class.

“Do you hate me?” She gave Damian a strange look.

“I thought we had this conversation literally two days ago?” He frowned at her. 

“Yeah, but… someone said… they said you don’t actually like me… and you’re only nice to me because you have to be… and that-”

“Just sit down, Marinette.” He scoffed at her emotions.

“Hey.” Jon walked in, and seemingly already knew there was a problem. “What’s going on?”

“Marinette’s believing rumors, like an idiot.” 

“Seriously?” They both noticed her voice crack, and gave confused reactions. “Fuck you.” She picked up her backpack, and left.

“Wait, no, come back here-” Jon tried. 

So that’s why his father had assumed she had run off. 

Because she actually did do that.

“Damian, what did you do?” Jon sighed.

“Me?! She’s the dumbass who heard some rumor that I hate her and believed it.” He shrugged.

“Dude. You both make jokes about how you hate each other, of course there’s something else behind why she’s upset. So what is it you did?”

“I swear I didn’t do anything!” He hissed, other classmates were turning around to give them funny looks. Jon just sighed, and followed her out of the classroom.

“Please take a seat Mr. Kent, and wait until Miss Dupain-Cheng comes back.”

“No.” Jon left. 

Great. 

He looked down the empty hallway, and heard a siffle come from the bathroom. 

Ah ha. 

He leaned his back up against the wall, making it look like he was waiting for ehr, which he was, and went to call out to her when he stopped.

She was calling someone on her phone. 

He felt like an asshole, but he waited to see who she was calling. 

_‘Kagami?’_ She asked softly.

_‘What’s going on? Aren’t you supposed to be in school?’_

_‘Yeah. Something… something came up.’_

_‘Marinette, what happened?_ ’ A second voice came on. A male one.

 _‘Do you really think… Do you really think Uncle Jagged would ask someone to be my friend? Does he really think I’m not capable of making friends?’_ She sounded scared, for some reason. 

_‘Marinette, he probably thought you would be too scared to talk to anyone that he asked someone to talk to you first.’_ The girl came back on.

_‘Yeah, but…’_

_‘Marinette, I hate to break it to you, but you and I both know you’re too terrified of another Lila incident to actually go out and look for friends._ ’ A Lila incident? _‘He knows you won’t actively try and look for happiness since you’re so terrified of it being taken away again.’_

Again?

_‘I know, and as much I hate you being right Luka, I just… it still hurts. It hurts that I have to rely on other people for stuff like this so much.’_

_‘You can rely on me any time of the day.’_ Kagami encouraged her. _‘Except maybe two am. That’s the ghost hour, and I don’t like ghosts.’_ Marinette giggled. 

_‘Ok._ ’ There was a pause. _‘I love you guys.’_

_‘We love you too.’_

_‘I love you, Marinette.’_

_‘I’ll kick their asses if they’re mean to you.’_

_‘No don’t. They’re really nice, I don’t want to mess this up. Even if it doesn't seem real.’_ Ah ha. So she was worried that since Damian was asked to be nice to her that they’re whole thing they had going for them was all a lie and they would just leave her. 

Maybe that’s what a Lila incident was?

_‘Fine. The ass kickings will be spared for another day.’_

_‘Thank goodness. I really… I really think I can make this work. I think I can find a way to finally heal from the whole ‘Fu retired and forcefully left me with everything’ problem.’_

What?

_‘Oh yay. I really hope this is as good for you as they hoped it would be.’_

_‘Bye, guys.’_

_‘Bye Marinette.’_

She hung up the phone, and walked out the door. 

“Hey.” He said when the door opened. She froze. “You looked pretty upset, you want to talk about it?” She looked down at the floor.

“No.”

“Ok then. You can tell me whenever you want to, even if it’s never, but I’ll still listen anyway.” He leaned off the wall. “But you know what this calls for? Ice cream.”

“What?” She asked bleakly, looking up from the floor.

“Yeah. My mum says everything can be fixed with ice cream.”

“I’m not broken.” She didn’t sound too sure of that.

“Of course you aren’t. But being sad can make your brain chemicals imbalanced, and then you need to make them un-imbalanced. Which ice-cream can help with.”

“But we have class?” She tried to argue. He shrugged. 

“We’re already getting detention for dramatically running out anyway, might as well do something worth getting detention for.” For a second, she looked hopeful. 

“Ok.” She finally agreed, and followed him out. 

“I apologize for my emotionally stunted friend by the way. He can seem like an asshole, but I promise he warms up to you. It just takes four to seven years.” She giggled. Progress.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who wants to see Damian having only a solid half of a braincell?

“Jon’s not here, you know you don’t have to sit so close to me.” Damian grumbled at her towards the end of the week.

“Trying to get rid of me already, are we?” She deadpanned, and he blinked. 

“I was simply stating that we don’t have to restrict ourselves to two-thirds of the table, we can spread out a little more.”

“Maybe I find joy in making you uncomfortable.” He knew it was a joke, but still. Ouch. 

“Seriously?”

“Fine, I’ll move.” She moved over one seat, and dragged her stuff with her.

“Thank you.”

Jon didn’t show up by lunch either. 

Damian was fine with sitting alone without him, but Marinette, a little begrudgingly, sat down on the other side of the table across from him anyway. 

They looked at each other a little weirdly before going back to their lunches.

“You don’t like me.” She said. It wasn’t phrased like a question, it was phrased like a fact.

“Jon likes you.” He deflected. 

“But you don’t.”

“Why did you sit with me if you know that, then?” She sighed, and stabbed her salad.

“I don’t know. But I can move if you only tolerate me with Jon around.” He didn’t know what to say to that, honestly. _No, you can’t move, I have to watch you because I was told to_? Not likely.

“Marinette, look,” He sat back in the chair, “Jon is literally my only friend that I tolerate. If you're his friend, and I’m also his friend, we’re stuck with each other.” She gave him a confused look. “You may not like me, and I may not like you, but if you're going to be his friend you’re gonna be mine too. Whether either of us like it or not. You're stuck with me.” She stared at him for a second before she giggled. He was confused by this reaction. 

“That’s the nicest thing someone’s said to me in a really long time.” 

“Well…” Seriously?  _ That _ was  _ nice  _ to her? Now he  _ really _ wanted to know what happened to her. 

“Luka appreciates your friendship in advance, by the way.” She went back to her potatoes. 

“Luka?”

“My only other friend besides Kagami. He’s a musician, and two years older than me. I told him about you. He seems to like you.”

“He does?”

“Yeah.”

“Even though I snapped at you and we fight every five minutes?”

“Trust me, even  _ you _ are a 100% upgrade from my last group of friends.”

“Oh?”

“Remember what I said about… Chat Noir?”

“Oh, right.” He remembered. 

He had searched through all of everything he could find about her all over again, looking for who it could have been. 

He settled on Agreste. 

“But he wasn’t the only one. All of my old friends were ex-heroes-turned-assholes of some sort. My best friend was Rena Rouge, her boyfriend was Carapace, my old bully was Queen Bee, my other friends were Pegasus and King Monkey… The only people who never abused the power were Viperion, Ryuko, and Bunnyx.” She knew a lot more than she should, somehow.

That was a little suspicious. 

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.  _ Three people _ who weren’t assholes about being gifted magic. Can you believe that?”

“Were all of your classmates heroes or something?”

“Hero is a bot of a stretch of a word, but… I think so?” All of them except her? Seemed a little bit suspicious...

“What about you?” She got a dark look. 

“I was Multi-Mouse.” She grumbled.  _ Is that her tragic backstory? _ “I did it all of  _ once _ and gave the power back. Not fun.”  _ Nope, that’s not it. Gotta guess again. _

“Gave what back?”

“You know how I’ve been saying the powers were gifts?”

“Yeah?”

“They were little pieces of jewelry, Ladybug had her earrings, Rena and Ryukon had necklaces, Carapace and Viperion had bracelets, and as Multimouse, I… when activated, it was a pendant, but is disguise mode it looked like a coin on a string. It was… weird.”

“So the magic jewelry was where the powers came from?”

“Yeah. It was a little more complicated than that, but I kinda literally can’t tell you about it. Ancient magic would find a way to stop me.” That must suck, being affected by things you can’t control.

“That is… so weird.”

“Yup.”

It hit him on his way to the next class.

Chat Noir had a ring. 

She left him out when talking about that.

She had a ring on her chain. 

She had a ring that Jon found weird. 

She had THE ring. 

Marinette had the ring from Chat Noir. 

“I have to go home.” He was usually much better at coming up with lame excuses to leave, but today he was panicking.

“Mr. Wayne, would you please sit back down.”

“No.” He marched out of the classroom, and grabbed his phone. 

“Hello?” Jon answered.

“Get up you sick miserable shit, we’re going somewhere.”

“I’m not sick, I’m… out?”

“My house. Twenty minutes. Be there or I’m killing you.”

“You suck.”

“I know.”

* * *

“What the hell is this about?” Jon was confused. 

“Ok school skipper, I found out some fun information you might want to hear.”

“What?”

“Marinette stole the ring from Chat Noir, not Ladybug.” Jon blinked. 

“No way.”

“The ring on her necklace? That’s the magic ring. That’s why you found it so weird.”

“Shit.” He whispered. “Alright, my turn. I went to Paris, that’s why I skipped school. I tracked down that supposed old man. He’s not dead, he just has some serious amnesia. He had no idea who Marinette was, but I did find his phone.”

“Did you… steal a phone?” Damian was slightly impressed by this. 

“Yes, shut up. I stole it, and I went through the pictures, and I found ones of a book written in a language that doesn’t exist.”

“Let me see it.” Damian snatched the phone from him. “Wait, that’s the-”

“Ladybug, yeah. They’re all information, I’m assuming seeing as I can’t read it, on the magic that gave them the powers.”

“Magic jewelry corresponding with animals that grant users abilities, I already know a lot about it.”

“Wait, what? How?”

“I made a friend, Jon. A friend named Marinette who knows a lot more than she’s telling us.”

“Oh.”

“Which you would know if you came to school today instead of stealing from old men.” He looked at the picture a little bit more. “Wait, so the old man is in on this whole magic thing?”

“Yeah, clearly.”

“And Marinette said… she got it when he left it to her…”

“So she’s in on something.”

“Shit.” He hoped it was something good, he had really been rooting for her. She seemed so sweet. 

“Great. I show around  _ one _ new kid, and suddenly we have a potential future terrorist on our hands. Great.” Jon grumbled, and snatched the phone back.

“Wait. I have another theory.” He hopped into his laptop, and opened a new file. He started to write down all the known facts to reflect on them. 

“Oh please, I really hope she doesn’t turn out to be a magic terrorist.”

“So she said the other day, when we asked her about why she punched me, she said that they were forced to place their faith in people that were granted the powers, right?”

“Yeah?”

“If it was granted to them, they had to come from  _ somewhere _ , right?”

“Right?”

“So what if the old man… was the guy who had them?”

“How would that…” Jon considered it for a second. “Wait-”

“So Marinette said the heroes all abused their powers, right?”

“Yeah, so maybe she was-”

“Training under the old man so that she could take the powers back, and re-distribute them.” Damian finished his sentence for him. “So Ladybug may really have taken the ring from Chat Noir, and then given it back to the old man, and in turn the old man gave it to Marinette, making her the new Chat Noir.”

“Fucking genius.” Damian paused his typing at Jons remark. 

“I hope.”  _ Ah, that. _

“Yeah. We hope. I don’t want to suspect her of anything, so… we hope she was really a good person all along.”

“Yeah.” There was a pause. 

“Well now I'm tempted to see what she thinks of me as Superboy.”

“That, J, is a _ terrible _ idea. The worst you’ve had in years.”

“What, why?”

“I’ve read up on her.”

“Of course you have.”

“She was the smartest kid in her class, not, like, science wise- she’s failing that class right now, but general intelligence-wise.”

“So?”

“ _So,_ she would recognize your dumb ass is three seconds flat.” 

“Ah. Damn.”

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

She was working on making a wrap skirt, one of the easiest skirts to make, but she was struggling harder than she should have been. 

“Dammit.” She mumbled as she made a mess on the floor of her and Bella’s room. 

“Struggling?” Bella asked from where she was sitting on her bed and typing on her laptop.

“Making a mess, more like.” She grumbled.

Her cutting mat was just a little bit too big to fit in between their beds, and her fabric was wider than she had space to cut. 

“Have fun with that.”

“And now I don’t even have the damn…” She needed a new pair of scissors. “Argh!” She growled, cleaned up her mess, and stormed out of the room, taking her backpack with her. 

She was walking down the sidewalk when someone attempted to jump her. 

She swore loudly, and punched them in the face. 

“Put your hands up!” A man yelled at her. She ran. A shot rang out, and she felt burning pain in her shoulder. 

Superboy was supposed to stay away from Marinette. 

She was smart enough to figure them both out. 

But of course he happened to be alone when he saw her get shot.

She ducked into an alley, and he tried not to roll his eyes at her stupidity.  _ So much for being smart as hell _ … 

Until he went to follow her in, and… didn’t find her. 

“Put the gun down.” He yelled at the man. 

He turned to aim it at him, and fired. _ Yeah, real smart, shoot Superboy. _

The bullet fell to the ground, crunched, and he heard a sharp intake of breath above him. 

“Well well well, what do we have here?” He looked up and saw a girl in a black hoodie zip-up with cat ears on it sitting cross-legged on a baton that was jammed between the two buildings. He couldn’t see her face under her hood. 

“Who the hell are you?” The man with the gun aimed it at her.

“Cooler than you.” She leaned backwards, and landed gracefully, and the man waved the gun in-between them. “Don’t bother, we’re not worth wasting bullets on.” She whispered a word he didn’t catch, and surged towards the gunman. In seconds, his gun was disintegrated and he was knocked out cold. 

“Who the hell are you?” He asked, and she looked up at him. 

“Black Cat.” She looked up at him for the first time, and they both froze. 

It was Marinette’s dark blue eye color, but it was… glowing. The whites of her eyes were replaced with glowing blue, and she had a thin black mask that outlined her eyes, but not much more than that. 

“Jon.” She nodded at him. 

“Marinette.” He nodded back. 

They stood there, awkwardly, until they both said at the same time, 

“I won’t tell Damian if you don’t.” They paused, and then they both laughed. 

“Deal.” Marinette reached out a gray gloved hand, and he saw there were claws on it. 

“Great.” They both stood there, mildly confused. “So, where did you really get that ring?” But then he noticed one of the ears on her hood twitch, and she whispered, 

“Someone’s coming.”

“Wait, what?” He looked up to watch as Red Robin came into view. 

“Evening, Gentlemen.” He nodded at them. “Whoa wait, you're not Robin. Who the hell are you?”

“Significantly cooler than Robin.” She threw finger guns at him, and jumped up to grab her baton. 

By some magic, she extended it, and disappeared. 

“Who-”

“Best not to ask.” Jon sighed, and soared up into the air. 

“Oh look at that. Exactly where I thought you would be.” Jon found her running on the empty Track and Field track. 

“Oh. Look at me. Exactly where you thought I would be.” She wiggled somewhat. He figured her shoulder still hurt a slight bit. “Do we have to do this here? There’s kinda some security cameras, and I-”

“Do what?” He gave her a funny look. “There’s nothing to do. I had a feeling my friend would be here, and I was bored, so I came to watch.”  _ What? _

“Uh, ok.” she took her other earbud out. “I was just running.”

“Well I’ll run with you, then.” She set her headphones down by her bag, and they started to jog lightly. 

“So, the ring came from your grandfather figure?”

“So, you were born that way?” She countered. 

“Fair point.” They passed a checkpoint on the rubber matting. “Having any trouble with the constant new language, by any chance?”

“Nah, not really. I already watch so many movies in english, and so much of the media is in english anyway, so it’s not… it’s not  _ that  _ difficult.”

“Interesting.” 

“I guess.” She tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

“For saying I hated superheroes.”

“Oh.” He shrugged it off. “You have your reasons to be upset, and I’m not gonna let your negative experiences offend myself and my experiences simply because they’re different from yours.”

“Thanks.” They jogged in silence for a few minutes, before he asked, 

“Who was Lila?” She tripped, and fell over. 

“Who the hell told you about Lila?” She gave him a dark look. 

“No one. You did. In the bathroom. On the phone.” She slammed her fist into the ground. This was a bad plan. 

“You seriously had to ask that? Of all of the questions you could have had, it  _ had _ to be that one.”

“Whoops.” He mumbled. 

“I can’t- I can’t do this right now.” She walked over to her backpack and headphones. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t want to talk about that.” She disappeared out the door. 

“Dammit.” He mumbled to no one. 

“Don’t make me regret this.” Jon said to Damian, who was typing furiously on his computer in the batcave. 

“We’re cool.” Damian gave him an evil smirk, and he regretted it already. “I’m very grateful for this new lead.” He had held out on telling him about whoever Lila was because he  _ knew _ this was going to happen. 

“Don’t make a mess of things.” He said as Damian mumbled under his breath at everything he found. 

“Ok.” Damian turned the screen, ten minutes later. “So, from what I can gather, Lila Rossi is the fakest of fake bitches, and an asshole. She’s lied about knowing so many celebrities, name drops for attention, and absolutely excels at making people miserable. People like our Marinette.” **_Our_** _Marinette?_ Where did _that_ come from?

“What?”

“Yeah, so basically, from what I have found, Lila tricked a bunch of people into making Marinette miserable, and she used to be a super-positive person, everyone loved her, Lila got mad everyone loved Marinette, and manipulated everyone into hating her until she became the depressed person she is now.”

“So that’s why she acts like she hates us so much while also never talking to anyone else.” Jon mused, “She thinks that she can;t make too many friends or else they’ll just randomly start hating her for no reason.”

“Well that’s dumb.” Damian scowled. 

“Not really.”

“How?”

“Think about it from her perspective. She had a bunch of friends that she knew for literally  _ years _ , and she was  _ really close _ with them, and then one day someone just walked into her life, someone she  _ didn’t even know _ , and took everything away from her. Literally  _ everything _ .”

“Huh.” He chewed on his lip, and then searched for something else. Some of her friends twitters. 

He opened one of them, someone named Nino, and opened the videos. 

He scrolled down to the oldest ones, and clicked on one of them. It had Mariette in it. 

_ “Dupain-Cheng on the left, with the egg carton! _ ” A voice behind them was pretending to be an announcer. 

_ “Kanté coming up on the right with the flour!” _ Marinette was climbing through an obstacle course in someone’s kitchen while clutching an egg carton. Another kid was near her, holding a sack of flour of flour almost as big as himself. 

_ “Dupain-Cheng hooks a right, onto the counters, Kanté not far behind!” _ They watched as Marinette climbed up onto the kitchen counter, moving over various ‘obstacles’ without knocking them over.

_ “Oh no! Agreste, are you seeing this? Kanté knocks over a soup can, and that’s a five second penalty!”  _

_ “I am seeing this Lahiffe, and it is unbelievable! A five second penalty!” _ A different voice piped up.  _ “But that’s a flawless finish from my lovely girlfriend! Gorgeous, as always!”  _

Damian stared at the computer screen. 

Marinette was smiling. 

No, not smiling.

That was a big toothy grin. 

She was grinning. 

And Agreste was right. 

She looked gorgeous.

_ “A record time!” _ Alya Cesairé appeared on the screen, and Marinette cheered loudly.

_ “Suck it, Max!” _ She jumped up and down, waving her hands, and also the egg carton, around. 

_ “Don’t drop the eggs, Marin-” _ The video stopped. It looped, and began again. He paused it.

They said nothing. It was silent as they stared at the paused video on the screen. 

“She looked so happy.” Jon practically whispered. 

“What the hell happened?” Damian mumbled. 

He found a different video labelled  _ 2-4-17 highlight reel: _

_ “Alright, first question in our interview.”  _ Alya grabbed some index cards, and Marinette rolled her eyes. 

_ “This isn’t an interview Alya, stop calling it that.”  _ She sounded annoyed, but she was smiling. 

_ “Yes it is! Your fans want to know-” _

_ “I do not have fans, Alya. That’s ridiculous.” _

_ “Yes you do! You have very dedicated fans to your artwork!” _

_ “Whatever.” _ Marinette giggled. _ “Let’s get this on, then.” _

_ “Ok! Question one! Your fans want to know… Milk or cereal first?” _ Marinette burst into laughter, but she quickly contained herself. 

_ “Neither. I don’t eat a lot of cereal, and when I do, I eat it straight out of the box.”  _ Alya snorted. 

_ “I wish I could dispute that, but it is in fact true.” _

_ “Oh shut the-” _

_ “NO SWEARING ON MY WHOLESOME BLOG!”  _

_ “Shut the cornhole!” _

_ “Fine. _ ” Alya huffed, and dramatically threw her top index card away, causing Marinette to laugh again. 

_ “ALYA WHAT THE HELL?!” _ Marinette struggled to breathe from laughing so hard as she grabbed the bandonned index card. 

“ _ LITERALLY WHAT DID I  _ **_JUST_ ** _ SAY ABOUT MY WHOLESOME FUCKING BLOG?!” _

_ “There’s nothing wri…”  _ Marinette cut herself off as she choked. _ “There’s nothing written on this card!” _ her voice was raised significantly as she giggled. 

The camera was propped on a table, and she leaned forward, resting her forehead on the table, and her shoulders were visibly shaking from laughter.

It jump cut to a clip of Marinette standing on the table.

_ “Can she do it? Can she really?” _ Alya asked in a sarcastic tone.  _ “Find out next week on-” _

“ _ Next week? I’m doing it right now!” _

_ “Wait, you can actually do a backflip?” _

_ “Yeah, asshole, I can!” _

_ “Stop cussing on my goodman motherfucking wholesome-ass blog!”  _

_ “Shut up.” _ Marinette waved to the camera as she squatted down in front of it. _ “Hold the table so I don’t kick it into the wall.” _

_ “Oh, ok.” _ Alya grabbed the table. Marinette jumped, arched her back, and landed on her feet. 

_ “Ta-Da!” _ She waved. 

It cut again. 

A clip of her singing a song from Frozen. It wasn’t very good, but she knew she wasn’t good and dramatically made herself sound much worse for comical effect. 

Her dancing to Macarena.

Her quickly explaining how she met Adrien. Her at-the-time boyfriend. 

A clip of her saying a bad pun. Alya smacked her with her with her index cards for the pun. She slapped her with her hand in response. 

It ended with a solo shot of Alya.

_ “Ok, so um, I threw an index card at Marnette and it kinda gave her a papercut, and, um, we have to cut this now. Bye!” _

  
  



	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WHO'S READY FOR SOME C L A S S - A ANGST?!!!
> 
> RAISE YOUR FUCKING HANDS FOR SOME SELF DOUBT AND MISCOMMUNICATION!!!!!!!

“Do you know what this means?” Jon asked him. He was still staring at the screen, even though he had long since shut the computer off. 

He couldn’t get the sound of her laugh out of his head. 

He couldn’t stop thinking about her smile. 

She looked so hopeful, so excited, so… happy. 

The girl who was scared of everyone fell in love with someone for giving her an umbrella when she didn’t have one.

The girl who refused to smile laughed at a blank index card. 

The girl who threw his things on the floor liked to dance to silly songs. 

The girl who was suspicious of everything he said made awful puns.

“It means someone had to _ seriously _ fuck her up to maker her the person we know her as.” He grumbled, and stood up. 

_ Alright, that’s it, _ he thought to himself.  _ I’m officially making her MY problem. I’m taking her in as my own whether she likes it or not. _

* * *

Jon couldn't stop thinking about her as he sat in the passenger seat of Kon’s car. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Kon frowned over at him. 

“New kid.” He mumbled, fidgeting with a pen. 

“Causing problems?”

“Not.. exactly…”

“Well? What is it, then?” Jon took a deep breath, 

“She's really depressed and scared to the point it’s concerning, like, extremely concerning, and I had D stalk her ex-friends socials and we found some videos of how she acted before she was depressed and it’s driving me crazy that someone would want to hurt someone like the person she used to be.”

“Damn.”

“She’s so small and she’s scared of literally everything and everyone. She never smiles, and she’s expressed her fear of us multiple times despite staying around us anyway. I can’t… I can’t imagine how she must feel, like, she’s been hurt by so many people so close to her often enough that she expects people to hurt her. It… I hate it.”

“That sucks.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“Sorry. I don’t really know how to help you here.” Conner pulled into his parents driveway.

“Thanks for the not-help.” He grabbed his backpack, and jumped out. 

“Hey, Jon?”

“Yeah?”

“Just… Don’t keep your distance.” Conner finally offered. 

“But if she-”

“If you distance yourself, she'll think you’re not really all that attached to her. Prove that you really do care by being around as often as possible. Even if it doesn’t make sense.”

“Huh. Thanks.” 

“Yep.”

* * *

“I realised I don’t have your number.” Damian tried to do his usual ‘I dislike you and I’m tolerating you’ voice as casually as possible as he sat down next to where she was eating her breakfast, not looking at her for dramatic effect. If he suddenly started acting like he cared for her, she would get suspicious. She was smart enough, she had proven it before. 

“And why would you want my number?” She huffed. 

“So I can invite you out places, duh.” He rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah, right, like you would ever willingly want to spend time with me.” She snorted. He gave her an offended look.

“You know what, just for that, fuck you. You’re invited to dinner this weekend. Friday. 8. Be there or I’ll tell everyone you dated a supermodel.”

“You wouldn’t.” She glowered at him. 

“Try me.” He glared back, and Jon found them. 

“What the hell did I miss?”

“Damian threateningly invited me somewhere.” She didn’t look away from him. He couldn’t believe she sounded skeptical of him.

“Oh, lovely, where are you two going?” Jon just sighed, sat down in his chair, and looked at his laptop as if this were a completely normal morning. Which it was. 

“My house.” Damian frowned at Marinette, waiting for her to crack first. 

“Nowhere.” Marinette grumbled. 

“Nowhere?” Jon questioned. 

“People don’t like me. People don’t ask me places, people hate me. Why would we go somewhere when it’s a known fact that people don’t like me? Because you're up to something evil and I can feel it.” The fact that she genuinely believed that was… concerning. Then again, most things about her were concerning. 

“He’s not evil, Marinette.” Jon kicked her under the table. Lightly. She blinked. 

“Ha!” Damian crowed. “You're number. Give it.” She scowled as she reached into her bag and ripped a page out of her notebook. She wrote her information down on it. 

“You know, one of these days, someone is going to mistake your antics for being in a relationship.”

“Bullshit.” They said at the same time. 

“Jinx.” Marinette mumbled. 

“Fuck off.”

“Marinette, I told you the whole phrase is ‘jinx you owe me a coke’.” Bella sat down across from her. 

“Fuck you too, Bella.” He grumbled. 

“I don’t like coke.”

“Good.” Damian snatched the paper away from her. “I won’t get you one, then.”

“But I do like chocolate. Jinx you owe me a chocolate bar.”

“Oh shut the fuck up.”

By period one, he managed to somehow bring her a chocolate bar. She had no idea how he did it. Vending machine, maybe? She hadn’t seen any around the school…

They were working on a new project. Some lab thing, working with some iodine thing, Jon didn’t really know nor did he care. 

He was frowning at the packet he had been given, thinking about how he was going to copy off of Damian, when he heard a disaster waiting to happen. 

“Hey, Marinette, can you hand me that pair of tongs over-” he was cut off, and a loud crash followed a half a second later. 

Jon looked up to see Marinette glaring down at the floor, where some kid named Jack was laying on the floor holding his wrist in his hands and cringing. 

“Don’t. Touch. Me.” She growled. 

“Shit.” Damian whispered, and jumped to his feet. 

“Marinette, are you ok?” He jumped over a table, and she backed away from Jack. 

“He touched my shoulder.” She mumbled. 

She reached up towards her neck, and the red lines she made down her neck did not go unnoticed. 

“Ok, it’s ok, you’re ok.” Damian kept a few feet away from her, not crowding her, waiting to see how bad it was. 

“Miss Dupain-Cheng did you just break someone’s arm?” The teacher glared at her, and she went from panicking a little to panicking a lot. 

“Mr. Frost, with all due respect, Jack kinda deserved it.” Jon tried. 

“Did you see what happened?” He had not.

“Well, uh, no, but-”

“Then that is none of your concern Mr. Kent, and I think-”

“I’m taking Marinette to the nurses office.” 

“Well hold up a second young man, I think she needs to-”

“She’s having a panic attack. Help Dewey over there on the floor, his whiny ass needs it.” Damian growled, dragging a spaced-out Marinette behind him. 

She blacked out for a few minutes, not sure what to think, but registered that she was sitting in a chair. It had a knitted pattern. The chair arms were metal. 

She had her knees pulled to her chest. She was hugging them tightly.

She could hear a woman talking. 

“Mr. Wayne,  _ what  _ have I told you about violently injuring people who mildly inconvenience you?” She said exasperatedly. 

“I know what you said.” She heard Damian sitting next to her. He had hurt somebody?

“Well then why on earth do I still keep getting students who-” 

“It wasn’t him, ma’am.” She heard Jack from her bio class. “It was the tiny one.” Oh.  _ She _ had hurt somebody. And Damian had been attempting to take the blame for it. 

Wait, where was she?

She opened her mostly squeezed shut eyes, her breathing picking up. 

She was in what looked like a nurses office. 

There were very bright lights in the ceiling. 

Damian was on his phone next to her. 

“Oh, look who’s responsive.” The nurse looked down at her as the door opened and then closed. The other kid must have left. 

She had broken somebody’s wrist. 

He had tried to touch her shoulder. 

And the teacher had given her an accusing look, and she was reminded of all the times Mme. Bustier had blamed her for things and she had panicked. 

She had started to claw at her own skin, and then Damian had dragged her out of the room, when she didn’t kill him for reaching out to her. 

“Oh.” She said weakly. 

“Do you need anything?” The nurse asked them. “I have a meeting I have to get to, and if you’re here by yourselves, I’ll leave you.” She just blinked at her. 

“Seriously?” Damian gave her a funny look.

“Oh, good.” She shut the lights off, and walked out. 

“Did she seriously just leave two students alone when one of them is freaking out?” He grumbled, and walked over to the door she had shut, opening it slightly. She appreciated that. 

She didn’t say anything for a while. But he kept talking to her, standing between her and the door, in case someone tried to come in, but also far away enough from the door she didn’t feel trapped, hoping it helped. 

“So, funny story, the nurse and I are unfortunately familiar because I was a lot more angry when I started out here. I would try to fight everyone all the time, and it was… not good.” She wiggled slightly in response. “Jon said it might help if I ask if you want to watch a cat video. Do you have anything against cat videos? I really like cats. I have, like, seven.” She blinked up at him. She seemed confused, but a lot less scared now. “You can come see my cats, if you actually come over on Friday.” She nodded slowly. “I have cats, and two dogs, and a cow and a turkey, and a snake, and…” She picked her head up. 

“Dog?” Her voice sounded hoarse. 

“Yeah, two dogs. Titus and ace. Titus is a great dane, and Ace is a greyhound.” She gave the smallest smile. 

“Cow?”

“Yup, I have a cow, too. I got her when she broke out of a factory of some sort. She has a patch on her forehead that looks kinda like the batman symbol, so I named her Bat-Cow.” She giggled. She honest-to-god giggled. He thought it would take much more work to get to that point. 

“Bat-Cow.” She whispered. 

“Yeah. You can pet her, she’s really soft and fluffy. And kind. I promise.” She nodded slightly.

“Ok. I will come over. For cats and dogs and cow.”

“Thanks.”

“Why thanks?”

“Because.” He shrugged. “You clearly don’t trust anyone. But you’re nice enough to me. Despite how much we act like we hate each other, I think… I think we can be friends.” She seemed to ponder this a little. 

“Hug?” She asked. He recoiled slightly, but then thought about how this was a success. This was good. Her asking for a hug was good. 

“Yeah.” She stood up, and he met her halfway. “But we can’t make a habit if this, ok? Or Jon might get suspicious that we don’t actually hate each other, alright?”

“Ok.” She said softly, and he knew she got the joke. 

He pulled her closer, and holyshit she was too small. 

Her ears came up to his chest, and she was so thin it was added to the growing list of concerning things about her. He needed to start making a real list. 

She had to lean on her tip-toes to reach his shoulders.

Her heartbeat was still a little too fast, and he didn’t let go until he felt it go down at least a little bit. 

“Why don’t you hate me?” She sounded genuinely confused. Shit. 

“I told you already.” He crossed his arms as she fixed her two little pigtails. “You’re stuck with me. Whether you like it or not.” She furrowed her brows. 

“But you said you’re stuck with me. Why did you bring me here? Why… Why didn’t you leave me there?” He hesitated. 

“Because,” He reached up and fluffed her bangs a little, “The second you made yourself my problem, I picked you.” She was confused by this. “I don’t actually dislike you, I actually like you very much. You’re impressive, and I think your existence is beneficial to mine.” He sighed. “And… Jon, I can _ hear  _ you lurking. Come help me with feelings, I’m not good at feelings.” Jon walked in, and leaned on the doorframe. 

“What he’s trying to say is that we have adopted you. You’re in our friendship whether you like it or not. You’re one of us, and we’re not letting anything happen to you. You’re ours. And we plan on keeping you.”

“Oh.” She started to cry. “But why?”

“Why not?” Damian countered. “Why the  _ hell  _ not?”

“Because… I’m awful. And no one likes me, and-”

“Marinette, whatever the hell happened in Paris, we don’t care.” Jon assured her. “We really don’t.” She sniffled. 

“Whatever someone else has told you is officially invalid. You’re starting over. Square one.”

“Passing Go and collecting $200.” Jon offered. She wiped the tears off of her face, and let out a small choke of a laugh. It seemed more like a cough. But it could easily be read as a laugh.

“Do you really mean that?”

“It’s too late. No takesies backsies. You’re in our shit for life.” She snorted slightly, and Damian handed her a box of tissues. 

“You’re the best.” She whispered, and took it from him. 

“Seriously? I give you that nice dramatic speech, but _ he’s _ the best for handing you tissues? Really?” Jon feigned offense. She nodded. “Fuck you.” He teased her. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IT'S A SHORT CHAPTER BUT IT IS P A C K E D WITH FLUFF MY BOIS.

“Hi.” An old man opened the door, and she blinked up at him. 

“Oh goodness.” The man said. She thought it was because she had walked there in the rain, and not because she was a tiny kid with dark hair and blue eyes. 

“Can I come in? I promise I was invited.” He quickly moved out of the doorway, and let her in. 

“And who would you be, Miss…”

“Marinette.” She walked in, and looked for a place to leave her wet shoes. 

“Miss Marinette, I’m Alfred, and I have a feeling you would like if I put your socks in the dryer.”

“Oh, please.” She untied her sneakers, and peeled her soaking wet socks off. “If it isn’t too much to ask.”

“Of course not.”

“Really?” She handed him her wet socks, and he smiled at her as he took them. She felt weird, giving her socks to a stranger, but he had a point. Her feet were pretty wet. 

“Master Damian is down the hall, on the couch.” She nodded at him, and wondered to which hall he might be referring. 

She picked one, and tried it. 

She actually found him pretty easily. 

“Hey asshole.” She dropped her backpack on the floor, and noticed there was someone she didn’t know giving her a funny look.

“Hey Marinette.” Damian was watching an american TV show, something about cops in new york. 

The man looked back and forth between them, extremely confused, and she sat down on the couch next to Damian. 

“Demon Spawn, did you just get called an asshole… and not rect?”

“Drake, this is Marinette, Marinette, my  _ worst _ brother Tim Drake.”

“Oh.” She nodded at him, and then went back to looking at the show. She was fairly lost in the storyline, having no idea what the show even was. 

“So, what show even is this, anyway?”

“Oh, well, it’s-” He stopped because he had finally looked at her for the first time since she had walked in. 

“Marinette, did you walk here in the rain?” He frowned at her.

“Uh, maybe?” She was dripping wet, there was no denying that. 

“You idiot, you’re going to get sick if you sit there all wet.” He grumbled, and stood up. “You need a different shirt, at least. And what happened to your socks?”

“A Mr. Alfred took my socks.” She shrugged. Damian nodded. 

“Good. Now get up, we’re getting you new pants.”

“What?” He gently kicked her in the legs as he called someone, and she got up.

“Hey, Cass, you're small, can Marinette borrow a pair of your sweatpants?” He said to his phone. “Cool. Thanks.” He hung up, and she followed him up a set of stairs. 

He walked into someone's bedroom, and yanked open a bureau drawer. 

“Here.” He threw a pair of sweatpants at her, and then walked out after not finding any shirts. “I’m gonna grab a sweatshirt from my room, you can probably find a hairdryer in her bathroom.” 

She checked the bathroom, and sure enough found a hair dryer. It didn’t look very used. 

She made a face as she tried to dry her pink capri’s she had dug out now that she didn’t need to wear the pale blue uniform every day. 

She put her hair up in a bun, now that it was long enough to do that. 

She walked back out, and there was a large black sweatshirt folded on the bed. 

She peeled off her wet t-shirt and set it over the edge of the bathtub to dry with her pants. The Capris material had been too much for the small hair dryer. 

She figured the sweatshirt was thick enough and left her wet sports bra with it. It was so wet that it was shrinking and choking her. Not fun. 

* * *

She found herself a few minutes larter in an oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants with her hair in a messy bun holding a mug of hot coco in her hands as she sat cross-legged on a counter. 

“I still can’t believe you actually thought walking in the rain was a good idea.” He fussed as he found her a clean pair of socks. 

“I’m not hallucinating, right? Demon Spawn isn’t  _ actually _ mother-henning a tiny little girl right now, right?”

“I’m afraid he is, Timbo.” A girl in a wheelchair frowned at them. “He really is.”

_ “Are they always like this when you make a new friend?” _ She asked him in french. 

_ “I wouldn’t know, you’re the first friend I’ve made in years.”  _ He responded. She nodded. 

She hadn’t actually asked him if he spoke french, but just assumed he did. She was satisfied with his accent. 

“Interesting.” She switched back to english. 

“Oh no, there’s two of them.” Tim sighed, and walked out. They ignored him. 

“Ok, let’s go see if we can find my cats.” She tapped her fingers excitedly as they marched around the house, picking up various cats and bringing them back into the living room. 

“This is the oldest one, his name is Alfred Pennyworth because he has a patch that looks like a bowtie just like Alfred.”

“Cool.” She scratched his head, and he purred. She gave a small smile, and the cat climbed into her lap. 

“These three,” He gestured to a white one, a black one, and an orange one, “Were a gift from my father's wife Selina. When I was twelve, and a brat, I was mad that she was marrying my father, and she tried to bribe me with cats.”

“Well? Did it work?” She asked him. 

“Yeah. Yeah, it worked. I was successfully bribed with the gift of cats.” She snorted. 

“I’ll remember that, in case I ever need to bribe you of something.” He nodded, 

“I appreciate any consideration of future cats please and thank you.” She hummed as she pulled Alfred the Cat closer to herself for snuggles. 

“Ok.”

A few minutes later, he went and got his two dogs. 

“Dogs!” She didn’t exactly smile, but she did look positively excited. “Oh no.” Her excitement faltered. 

“What?”

“I… I don’t have enough hands.” She seemed to panic as she looked between all the animals. He tried not to laugh, as she hastily tried to pet them all at once. 

He took Alfred the Cat from her, and she just petted the two dogs. __

_ “Bonjour!” _ She said, and Titus sniffed her head. _ “How is your day? Did you have fun today? How are you? _ ” 

“I’m fairly sure they had a good day, seeing as I found a hole in my sunflower garden.” She jumped at his father's voice, but recollected herself quickly. 

“Good evening Monsieur.” She hastily clammored to her feet. 

“Nice to see you again, Marinette.” She seemed confused by this, and then realised. 

“Ah! Mayor Bourgeois’s Christmas party, two years ago?”

“You were there with a blond, if I remember correctly.” She got a dark look on her face. 

“God I hate that guy. He was the worst.” 

“Oh?”

“I’m assuming you came here for a reason?” Damian asked agitatedly. 

“Oh, yes, dinner’s done.” Damian nodded, and Marinette was still petting Titus. Ace had found something else to go sniff. 

“Marinette, are you coming?” She didn’t seem to hear him. “Hey.” He leaned down to look into her eyes. She was blinking rapidly, trying to hold back tears. “You ok?”

“No.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“You want a hug?” She considered it.

“Yeah.” She whispered, and started to lean on him. He caught her. She took a shaky breath, and he attempted to do something nice by gently scratching her head, above her ears. Hey, dogs liked it, why not try it on a person?

“Hypothetically speaking, if someone were to-” She started, and he cut her off. 

“Whatever he did to you, I won’t, ok?” She leaned back away from him, and nodded. 

“Ok.” 

“Now, do you like potatoes?”

“Yeah.” 

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon is a sassy little shit, and Damian takes his turn for the mental breakdown.

Jon walked into the cafeteria at a ridiculous hour of the morning to find Marinette sitting at her breakfast table and tapping her feet. She seemed to be doing her excited wiggle, and not her anxious wiggle. 

“Hey, what’s got you so high-strung today?”

“Four more days.” Was all she said as she shoved toast into her mouth. 

“Until… Thursday?” 

“Uh-huh.” She said through her toast.

“What’s going on on thursday?”

“Kagami and Luka are coming. For the tournament.” She started tapping her hands on the table. 

“Oh, fun.” He pulled out his laptop to work on a project for his english class. “So, how was friday?”

“Fun! I got to pet a cow, it was awesome.”

“Yeah, Bat-Cow is pretty cool.”

“And fluffy.” She smiled down at her tray.

“If you keep wiggling and eating, you’re going to get jam on your uniform.” Damian grumbled as he sat down. 

“Shut up.” 

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I will not cease to express my concern for your general well-being, Marinette.”

“Oh.” She moved on from her toast to her juice. “Ok.” 

“Come on, you’re gonna be late.”

“Bell hasn’t rung.”

“No, but you take an average of ten minutes to eat your whole plate, you’re alway through your food, and there's three minutes left until the bell.” Damian didn’t look up from his phone as he lectured her. “So eat faster.”

“Well excuse me if I’m not used to actually eating food in the morning.” She snapped back, and they both gave her a funny look.

“You what?”

“Don’t worry about it.” She flipped them off as she shoveled eggs into her mouth. 

“Oh I will too worry about you.” She gave a defeated sigh, and ate as fast as she could. 

* * *

They had a substitute teacher for period one on Wednesday. 

Apparently, he was grumpy. 

“There are two perfectly good empty chairs, why don’t one of you move from being cramped in the very back to sitting up here?” He frowned at them. 

“No.” They all three said at the same time. 

Sure, Damian had been confused as to why she had demanded to sit in between them too, at first, but didn’t question it, really. 

But now that he knew she didn’t like being around unfamiliar people, and not that she was being petty and fighting him for the seat next to Jon, he just let it go. 

“What do you mean  _ no _ ?”

“We mean, Marinette and Damian have been fighting for the seat at the end of the table for three weeks, and neither one of them is going to give it up for some substitute.”

“They’ve been fighting for the right to sit there?” He frowned at them, and the both looked down at the table. 

“Yes sir.”

“So then  _ you _ can move, Mr. Kent.”

“Well, with what little due respect sir, if I’m not here to play damage control for their habit of constantly fighting each other, I think, quite frankly, the world would explode.” Over half the class laughed at his (quite true) statement. 

“Excuse me? I’m the teacher right now, and I’m saying you need to be moved, you can go back there tomorrow, but I’m saying three people cannot sit in two seats today.”

“Fine.” Jon stood up, and walked towards the front of the room. “Katie, be a doll, and go help Jack? I don’t think his wrist is healed yet from when Marinette broke it.” Katie, gladly willing to help piss off an entitled asshole, and sitting at a whole desk by herself, grabbed her backpack and went to sit in the second empty seat in the middle of the room. “Thanks Lebelle.”

“No problem, Kent.”

He grabbed her table, lifted it over his head, and brought it to the back of the classroom. 

“Now wait just a second Mr. Kent, you can’t just up and change the seating arrangement, now-”

‘“Oh really?” Jon set the table down, and pushed it up against the table his two friends were sitting at. “Because you were all-for moving me around two seconds ago.” He went back for the chair, and plopped himself down. Marinette and Damian were still squished next to each other. “Now, are you to teach us stuff or do I need to file a complaint?” The teacher glared at them, but finally opened his laptop and got on with class. 

* * *

The next day, Damian was in his awful gym class when a voice came over the PA speakers, 

_ ‘Marinette Dupain-Cheng to the office for dismissal, please. _ ’ He frowned. Marinette was an international student who lived on school grounds, she shouldn’t be getting dismissed… 

“Hey, can I go to the bathroom?” He asked, and didn’t wait for an answer. 

He tried not to run down the hall, hoping he made it to the office before she did. 

“Hey.” A tall guy, a bit older than him, nodded. 

“Who are you?” He didn’t recognize him from anything he had seen online. 

“Luka Cauffain.” Luka gave him a wary look. “Who are you?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He crossed his arms.  _ Wait a second, I think I recognize his name, maybe he- _

“Ok, Doesn’t Matter, why are you looking at me like that?” 

“Marinette is an international student. She doesn’t get dismissed for anything, she lives in the dorms, so excuse me if I get suspicious of someone trying to kidnap my friend.” The guy frowned at him for a second before snorting at him. 

“She was right. You are a little hotheaded.” 

“Hey now wait a minute-”

“You must be Damian, then. Which makes him Jon.” Damina turned to see Jon leaning on a wall, watching them. 

“We will not apologize for our concern.” Jon kept a neutral expression. 

“What are you two doing here?” Marinette frowned at them as she popped up. “Are we surprise-going somewhere again?”

“Hey Ma-Ma-Marinette.” Luka waved, and she finally noticed him. She squealed like a little kid, ditched the backpack, and jumped up to hug him. 

“Luka! You came to save me from the miserable calculus!”

“I did.” He smiled as he hugged her tightly. “Now, Kagami’s in the car, I have a little bit more paper to fill out if you want to go with her while I deal with this.” She set her feet back on the floor, and nodded. 

“They didn’t give you too hard a time about potentially kidnapping me, did they?” Luka raised an eyebrow. 

“Is that normal?”

“No, but I had a feeling they would since I live here and have no reason to be dismissed. They’re not dumb, Luka.”  _ Gee, thanks for the compliment _ . “But I’ll see you in a few minutes.” She skipped towards the door, and Luka sighed as he picked up the backpack she had forgotten about. 

“Some things never change.” He mumbled, and shouldered the backpack before signing some papers and gave the two one last look before walking out. 

“Interesting.” Jon nodded approvingly. 

“Good.” Damian headed back to his gym class. 

* * *

He walked into fencing practice that evening, and saw two people fencing each other, which wasn’t abnormal seeing as _ it was fencing practice _ , but the abnormal part was that they were…. Really good.

Sure, there were some good people in this dumb club, but he was easily better than all of them. By a lot. 

But these two moved like they had known each other for forever, knew every move the other was about to pull, they moved fluidly. 

It was almost like they were dancing. 

He knew for a fact he had never seen these two people before. 

They weren’t tethered to anything, and so they moved around the gym in odd patterns. 

Eventually they came to a halt in the center, not seemingly for any reason other than they wanted to. 

The girl on the right took off her helmet off first, and he recognized Kagami Tsurugi. The woman, the myth, the legend. 

She was smiling like she had her whole world in front of her. 

He felt his heart rate drop as the girl on the left took off her helmet to reveal a grinning Marinette. 

He swore her eyes sparkled when she smiled, and he wondered why he hadn't seen her smile like that ever before. It was a gorgeous smile, and it made her seem like she was almost glowing.

She gave a tinkly laugh, and looked over at him. 

But then her smile faltered for a second, and his heart sank.

_ Oh, right. That’s why I’ve never seen it before. She doesn’t like me.  _

“Staring at something, Wayne?” She yelled, and walked over to the gym bleachers. 

“Nope.” He yelled, and desperately wanted her not to leave. 

“Good.” Kagami followed her. 

They left the gear, and disappeared. 

He was a mess for the rest of the night. 

“Damian are you feeling ok?” One of the juniors asked. 

“Do I fucking look ok to you, Sanchez?” He growled, and left a bit early. 

* * *

“Did you see the look on his face?” Kagami smirked at her. “He was scared as hell.”

“Oh shut up.” Marinette grumbled as she threw her backpack into Tomoe’s weird car. 

She didn’t think it was cute.

She felt guilty.

Like she was only able to act like she wanted to around Kagami. 

She felt guilty, as if by being happy around Kagami and not around him she was holding out on him. 

She felt like it was unfair to them that she could smile around Kagami and not them. 

“Are you ok?” Kagami asked softly. 

“I may not be fine right now, but I will be.” She mumbled, and curled up in her seat. 

“I trust you.” Kagami held out a hand, but she didn’t take it. She pulled her knees up to her chest instead. 

She would never admit it out loud, but... she wished Kagami had tried a little harder. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CLIFF HANGER TIMMMMEEEEEE

She still had to go to school on Friday, despite the fact she wanted to spend the day with Luka instead. 

Kagami was working on warm-up training all day. 

She FaceTimed Jon instead. 

* * *

Jons phone went off at an ungodly hour of the morning. 

“What.” He grumbled. 

“Get up, bitch.” Marinette said, and he realised he could see her face. 

“Why?”

“Because. I usually talk to Kagami while doing my makeup in the morning, but she’s busy today. So I’m talking to you instead.”

“Oh.” He set the phone so she was looking at his ceiling, but he didn’t actually move. 

“So, basically, I usually give her a little life update, how I feel, and then she’ll complain about whatever new diet she’s being forced to go on, and then I say my friends may be jerks but I love them anyway and then I hang up. And then go find you for breakfast.”

“Huh. Fun.” He mumbled in response. 

“So what did you think of Luka?” She started to put stuff and such on her face in places. 

He didn’t know anything about makeup. 

“He cares about you. A lot.”

“That doesn’t tell me what  _ you _ think of _ him _ .” She said sarcastically. 

“He had cool hair.” He tried. She laughed. “I don’t know, he was just… a guy.”

“Well, he liked you. If you deemed that important to know.” She put shiny stuff over her cheekbones, and made a funny face. “He’s honestly glad you were suspicious of him. He said that that meant you would be suspicious of other people too, and apparently that’s a good thing.”

“I’m sure the one who would love to tell you all about his first impression is Damian. He’s  _ very _ into telling people his opinions on them.”

“Huh.” She put the shiny shit on her nose. “Well I’ll go bother him instead of you then.”

“Nooo.” He half-assedly whined, not really caring if she hung up or not.

She did. 

He rolled over and went back to sleep. 

* * *

“Something wrong?”

“Does something have to be wrong to call my friend?” 

“It does if you choose to do so at 6:30 am.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t even looking at him, she was doing something off-camera. “Well, no, nothings wrong, I’m just bored.”

“You’re bored.” He repeated. 

“Yeah. I usually talk to Kagami in the morning, but she’s busy today. So I called Jon, and he was too tired to hold a decent conversation.” Of course she called Jon first. “And now I’m talking to you.”

“Are you calling me your third-best option, D- Marinette.” He almost called her Dupain-Cheng.

Almost. 

“I see you already every day anyway, I call Kagami to keep up with stuff and such, and I saw you outside of class last friday. I saw Jon outside of class a week and a half ago. So logic said call him first.”

“Oh.” She had a point. 

“But I’ll make you my priority back-up if I have to.”

“You should make me your priority-everything.” 

“Damn, alright then. I might as well make you my emergency contact while I’m at it.” She was joking. 

“I already am.” He said without thinking. Then he cringed, and she looked at the phone confusedly. 

“You are?”

“Well, Father is, anyway.”

“He is?”

“Did you not know that?”

“I thought I put Aunt Penny as my emergency contact.” She paused the video as she exited the call to send a text. 

“No. Apparently your Uncle Jagged and my dad are friends, and he had Father put as your contact because he actually, you know,  _ lives here _ .” There was a pause on her end.

“Fair point.” She came back on the screen. “So. Luka.”

“Yes, what about him?”

“What did you think?” There was a pause as he collected his thoughts. 

“I think he has your interest as a priority and that is acceptable of him.”

“Good.” She giggled. _ Wait, she giggled- _

And, she hung up. Great. 

* * *

“You know,” Jon started as he sat down next to her, “I never did get the chance to ask you the other day, did you’re…” He paused, and lowered his voice, “Do those cat ears function as real ears because I swear I saw one of the twitch.” She didn’t smile, not directly, but she did get an evil gleam in her eyes. 

“Yeah. I have cat-based powers which means I can hear far-off sounds, but I can also smell the difference between people. I can smell all kinds of things.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Want to know the best part?”

“What's the best part?”

“I can purr. Like, really seriously purr.”

“Oh no way.”

“Yeah way, it’s pretty cool.”

“What’s cool?” 

“Science experiment I saw online.” Marinette bulllshitted. 

“Oh?”

“Yeah, where they put some powder into some liquid and it shot up and it was really awesome.”

“Huh.” He looked like he didn’t believe her, and rightfully so. She was lying out her ass.

* * *

Robin was doing his normal routine when he saw three people sitting in a row in a place they definitely shouldn’t be able to reach. 

The roof of WE.

_ How the hell… _

He made his way so he was able to eavesdrop on them, when he realised they were wearing masks. 

“So, Black Cat, are you _ really _ sure you're up for this?” A girl in a black red and gold costume asked.

“Honestly? I’m not sure. I don’t really know what to think of this whole ‘I have  _ cat-based  _ superpowers’ thing. I mean, the other powers were perfectly fine, but….”

Who the hell were these people?

“Do you really feel ok using the same exact miraculous that was used to hurt you? Do you _ really  _ want to go there?”

_ Wait, Miraculous, I know about miraculous,  _

“Well tell me, oh wise one, how the hell are you _ supposed  _ to feel when your ex makes a mistake, gets his powers taken away, and the only person left able to wield the same powers is  _ you? _ ” Black Cat shot back. 

“That is a valid argument.” The Green One nodded.

“I should sure fucking think so.” Black Cat grumbled. 

“We need to go.” The Red One sighed. 

“Fine.” The Green One agreed. “But we’re not done with this conversation.”

“I would think so.” Black Cat jumped over the edge, The Red One literally turned into a cloud, and the green one followed Black Cat. 

He needed to figure out what the hell just happened. 

* * *

The tournament was the next day.

“Marinette!” Kagami yelled at her, and whacked her with a pillow.

“I’m up! I’m up!” She rolled out of Kagami’s hotel room bed, and onto the floor.

“If anything, you are down.” Kagami teased her.

“Oh shut the fuck up.” She crawled upright, and looked for the clothes she had brought with her.

“Come on. Get ready. We have to go.” 

“Fine.” She grumbled. “Is anyone else from D'Argencourt gonna be there? Or just you?”

“I don’t really know, I don’t really care.”

“Understandable.” She nodded, and snatched up her backpack. 

* * *

Damian would always tell Jon he didn’t  _ have _ to go to his dumb tournaments, but he kenw he appreciated him being there. 

“Yo.” Marinette jumped over a chair, and walked next to him. “Where are you going?”

“D asked me to get him a water bottle because he lost his, and now I’m talking to you.”

“Fun.”

“What about you?”

“Luka’s getting me nachos. Can we sit with you?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t really looking for anyone in particular, anyway. So you aren’t, like, crashing in on any plans.”

“Oh yay.”

* * *

Damian would not admit that he was tired. 

But he was.

He had spent nearly half the night looking up those heroes online. 

The green one was Viperion, he had the power of Second Chance, the red one was Ryuko and had elemental powers. 

There was something oddly familiar about them, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. 

“Hey.” Marinette popped up next to him, one her hands jammed in her pockets, and her other hand holding a water bottle. 

“Oh. Hey.” 

“Jon said you asked for this? He saw someone he knew and ran off.”

“Yeah, sounds like him. If it weren’t for you, I might not have gotten this for another three hours.”

“You’re welcome, then.”

“I didn’t thank you yet.”

“No, but I figured you would so I said welcome first.” He smirked and rolled his eyes. 

“But it’s more polite if you wait.”

“Polite my ass.” She rolled her eyes, and jammed her other hand in her pocket. 

“Where are your friends?”

“Kagami is wherever she has to be, and Luka’s getting snacks.”

“Ah.” He nodded. 

“When do you get a lunch break? Maybe we can hang out.”

“11:30, but I don’t really eat.”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s a time you're doing nothing, and it gives me something to do if Kagami isn’t doing something interesting.”

“Oh.” He brought the water bottle over to his stuff, and she waved goodbye, off to find Jon. Or Luka. Or someone else. 

* * *

Seven people sat around a table quite awkwardly. 

Luka and Kagami seemed to be having a silent conversation, Jon was discussing something with his older brother Conner, Dick was watching the heated argument between Marinette and Damian about what was truly considered a taco. 

It was an interesting lunch. 

Interesting, but uneventful. 

* * *

Marinette sat between Luka and Jon as she watched the second half of the tournament begin. 

No one she really knew was going up, so she went to the bathroom. 

* * *

After she left, another match started, and the names announced over a speaker. 

A Harmond Dale, and…

“Number 47, Adrien Agreste.”

“No.” Luka frowned, and glared down at the floor.

“Wait a second, wasn’t he…”

“Part of the reason Marinette’s here in the first place.” Luka nodded grimly, and Jon cringed inwardly. 

Good thing she was in the bathroom. 

They both prayed he lost, but he didn’t. He won his match, and they both groaned. 

“Hey! Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

“No.”

“Nope.”

“Nothing.”

“Not as all.” She shook her head at them, and sat down. 

* * *

“No.” Damian frowned over at the judges table where Agreste was talking to someone. 

“No  _ what _ , Damian?” Dick frowned at him. 

“He can’t be here.” He glared as his suspicions were confirmed. 

“ _ He _ who?”

“Agreste.” He growled, and angrily threw his water bottle down on the bench. 

“Who the hell is-” Realisation dawned on his face. “Oh. Oh no.”

“Yeah  _ oh no _ is a bit of an understatement.”

* * *

She was walking down the side of the isle when she heard behind her, 

“Hey! Princess!” She froze.  _ No _ .

She slowly turned, and saw his electric green eyes, and suddenly she was having flashbacks.  _ No _ .  _ No no no no no no no no no _ -

  
  



	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm just kidding, I'm not actually evil, here you go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, two chapters ago, I had the line 'she wished she tried a little harder' and I feel I should clarify Marinette wished Kagami had tried harder to get her to talk about her feelings. Just saying.

“What’s going on down there?” Conner had missed the whole conversation.

“Damian’s picked up on Bruce’s terrible habit of adopting sad kids.” Dick tried to explain.

“Yeah, but-”

“Ok, so, Marinette, the pigtails kid, is a new transfer because things were so bad at her old school her Uncle sent her to GA, and then Damian deemed her worthy to be his new pet project for some odd reason or another, he still won’t tell us, and then they show up here, at this tournament, riht?”

“Yeah.”

“And then the blond one that Damian’s yelling at, he’s… part of the problem. He’s basically, like, the crazy ex, right?”

“Oh.”

“And he found out Marinette was here, and he went looking for her and now she’s crying and one of her friends from Paris, the tall guy, and Jon are trying to make her stop crying, and now-” He stopped short as they watched a fight break out. “And now Damian’s punching a kid in the face.” 

“Oh no.”

“Should we intervene?”

“Maybe?”

“Yeah, I feel like we should.”

“Well… the kid doesn’t look very good at fighting… and he  _ is _ an asshole…”

“Ok. We intervene after five minutes.”

“Ok, sounds like a plan.”

* * *

  
  


She had really tried. 

She had tried so hard to get better. 

She didn’t want to be the person she had been in Paris, but nope.

This awful universe had other ideas. 

“Can you hear me?” She could, but she couldn’t see him. Her eyes were stuck shut. 

She couldn’t get the image of his evilly bright eyes out of her head. 

“You’re ok here.” Someone else said. 

She blinked, and opened her eyes slightly. 

Luka was sitting in front of her, cross legged. Jon was sitting next to him, resting his head on his knees. 

_ Deja Vu, anyone? _

She crawled over, and placed herself in Luka’s lap. He started to hum a little song to make her feel better. 

“Is he gone?” She heard her voice crack. 

“He’s not here.” That’s not what she meant. 

“Yeah, but… is he gone?” 

“Seeing as he got a nasty punch to the face, I think he got the message.” Jon tried. 

“Good.” She closed her eyes, and listened to Luka for nearly half an hour before Damian came back. 

“What happened to you?” Jon asked him, quietly, since they were fairly Marinette had panicked herself to sleep. 

“Had to fight the panel.”

“You what?” He hissed. 

“Fought them. Because they said it was not nice of me to punch the other contestants. I had to convince them he was stalking her, and that he was being an asshole and deserved it.”

“Well, seeing as it’s the truth, good.” Luka stopped his humming to say. 

* * *

Sure, his face was slightly sore because that agreste kid was not weak, but he had had worse ass-kickings from, you know, super villains. 

He caught sight of Marinette clinging to her older friend. 

She… looked peaceful. 

Strangely, he felt some peace of his own at seeing her not looking like she was on a rampage for once. Like there was hope she could be happy someday. 

He wanted to feel jealous, slightly wishing she felt like that with him as she did with Luka, but knew she couldn;t afford for him to feel like that.

“I said I fought with them, not that I won.” He grumbled.

“Awe, damn.” Luka tried to stand up and pick her up too, but she opened her eyes. 

“You can put me down, you know.” She slowly dropped her calm demeanor and went back to being on guard all the time. 

“But what if I don’t want to?”

“Put me down, Luka.”

“Fine.” She wiggled her shirt a little bit, it had gotten twisted somehow. 

“What the hell did I miss?” Kagami frowned at them from a few feet away. 

“That,” Jon made a face, “Is a  _ very _ long story.”

“Come on.” Damian reached a hand out to Marinette. She took it. Progress. I think. 

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

“Why?”

“Because. I can tell for a fact you didn’t eat breakfast.”

“How?”

“It isn’t all over your shirt.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m just kidding.” She let go of his hand and hugged his arm. “I know you were just messing with me, you did eat lunch at least, but I’m worried if I make you go back to the dorm you won’t eat anything.”

“Valid argument.” She yawned, and they took the long way out. He texted Jon to get her backpack from Bella. This was going to be an interesting weekend. 

* * *

  
  


Dick made it home before the kids did. 

“You heard about what happened, I’m assuming?” he saw bruce looking at his computer stressfully. 

“I swear I thought he was getting better.”

“He is.”

“The what the hell do you call-”

“He had a good reason. A very good reason. I'll vouch for it. So if you insist on reprimanding him, do not do it in front of that girl. She has had a miserable day already, and if you yell at him for trying to defend her it will make everything worse.” 

“I… see your point.”

“Good.”

* * *

Kagami was forced to stay at the tournament. She was furious about that, but stayed anyway. 

Luka had to stay with her, he promised he would. 

But he promised Marinette he would come viti her later. 

He didn’t expect it would happen like this. 

“As an apology for his son's outburst at the invitational today, Mr. Wayne has invited us to dinner.” Tomoe said to them later. 

They shared a look, knowing it had nothing to do with the ‘outburst’ they had called it. 

It was a cover so they could go visit Marinette.

“I expect you to be on your best behavior.”

“Yes mother.” Kagami nodded, and they got ready to go to the dinner.

She had insisted they arrive on time, so they didn’t have any time to visit with Marinette before the actual dinner. 

They figured they wouldn’t have much time after, either. 

But some time was better than no time. 

* * *

They pulled into the manor driveway, and the car let them out right in front of the door. 

“Madame Tsurugi.” A butler nodded at her as she got out. “This way, please.” He showed them to a dining room. 

The only other people in there were a woman in a wheelchair who was working on her laptop, and a guy with gray streaks in his hair with his knees on the table doing something on his phone. 

“Company.” The woman smacked the man's knee, and he set both of his feet on the floor. 

“Hey, has anyone seen the Dem- Uh, Damian?” He noticed the guests and switched from the nickname to his real name. 

“I have.” A man who looked extremely tired but was grinning walked in. Kagami noted he seemed to have one of Marinette’s hair bows stuck in his hair. 

“Tim, wha…”

“Jon gave me a little bow. See”?” He dramatically tried to flip what little hair he had, and sat down at the table. 

Silena walked in next, attempting to start some conversation with Tomoe. 

“Is Marinette here?” Kagami asked her. 

“Who’s Marinette?” Silena frowned at her. 

“Tiny thing, looks like Jon if he had Damian’s personality.” The woman at the end of the table said. 

"Mini Damian, if he were a girl and had blue eyes." Jason offered. 

“Oh!  _ That’s _ what her name is. Yeah, last I saw her and Damian when-” She was cut off by Damian running in, jumping over the table, and Marinette following. Except she jumped  _ on _ to the table, and tackled Damian from behind, forcing them both to the floor. 

“Give it back, you little shit!” Luka frowned at them, until she yelled “Ah-ha!” a few seconds later, and she raised her hand victoriously. 

“It wasn't even my idea!” He defended himself. “Blame Kent!”

“Oh really?” She started to say something else when Bruce sighed, and they realised they had an audience. 

“You know, normal people sit at the chairs when at a table. Not on the floor, or on each other.”

“Whoops.” Damina mumbled. 

“Apologies, Mr. Wayne.” She stood up from where she had pinned Damian to the floor.

“Sorry, Father.” He stood up as well.

Kagami tried her hardest not to laugh at them. 

Her mother would find it rude. 

* * *

“I never did get the chance to thank you.” Luka said to him after Kagami and Marinette disappeared somewhere. 

“Thank me?”

“Yeah.”

“What for?”

“For keeping Marinette alive.”

“What?”

“I… honestly, I mean very seriously, I think if you didn’t care so much about her, she might not have lasted two weeks without killing herself.”

“Oh?” Damian was thoroughly confused. She looked really bad, but he didn’t think...

“Yeah.” The tall guy looked down at the floor. “So thanks.”

“You feel guilty.” He noted. 

“Yeah.” 

“She’s fine, you know.” He said quietly. “Maybe not right now, but… She will be.”

“I hope you’re right.”

  
  



	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who wants a classic game of Truth or Dare?

“Your mom won’t let you have another sleepover?” Marinette pouted as she and Luka had to leave. 

“Technically, I don’t think she knew about the first one.”

“Oh.” Marinette frowned at the doorway. “Well, I will see you soon. And call you a lot.”

“You better.” Kagami pulled her in for a hug, staying a little too long, before finally leaving. 

Marinette stood in the entryway before Jon came and found her. 

“Hey. I built a blanket fort. You should come and check it out.” That ever so slightly lightened her mood.

“Ok. I will see if it is worthy of being deemed acceptable.” She agreed. He shook his head at her. 

“I’m so tired.” She threw her arms out on the floor of the blanket fort a few minutes later.

“Truth or dare.” Jon said out of nowhere. 

“J, that is literally the worst game.” Damian threw a pillow at him. 

“Truth.” Marinette ignored him. 

“Dumbest thing you’ve ever said?”

“Can I give you a top ten?” She asked sarcastically. 

“Nope.” She sighed. 

“I accidentally called Luka _dad_ once.” Jon burst out laughing. 

“What?” He practically shrieked through his giggles. 

“I bet you want to hear the rest of that top ten, now, don’t you?”

“No. No we don’t.” Damian huffed. “But your turn.”

“Ok, Damian. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.” He glared at her, still not liking the game they were playing. 

“Have you ever had a crush on someone?”

“I thought you were supposed to be the sad miserable one, not the _nosy_ one.” He grumbled. 

“Answer the  _ fucking _ question, D.” Jon threw a piece of popcorn at him. 

“Fuck you.” Damian threw the piece back at him. He feigned great offense. “Wonder Woman.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Suck my ass.”

“Do better.”

“Literally I hate everyone.”

“That is true.” Marinette nodded. “He does hate everyone. I deem the Wonder Woman answer acceptable.”

“Fuck you, Marinette.”

“Truth or dare, Kent.” Damian asked a bit begrudgingly. 

“Dare.”

“Buy me a pizza.” They got into a staring competition, before Jon finally pulled out his phone and ordered a pizza. 

“You’re the worst.”

“I know.” Marinette grabbed her phone, and shot a quick text. 

_ ‘Pick Dare nxt time. Trust me.’ _ Damian’s phone buzzed. He gave her a funny look, but complied. 

“Marinette, truth or dare while I’m buying this stupid pizza.” Jon grumbled.

“Truth.”

“Again?”

“Yup.”

“Fine. Worst date?” She hesitated before answering. _ Kent, what have you done? _

“I would say ‘the one where I was using my date as an excuse to get close to someone else’ but the fact that has happened more than once is a little concerning.” She answered. 

“You’re kidding.” Damian fought a smile. That was... a little funny. Something the League half of him would be proud of. 

“Nah, I’m not kidding. Once was when my friend Nino asked me out, and then I was like, ‘will Adrien be there’ and he was like ‘what’ and I was like ‘let’s hang out with friends. All of our friends. Including and most importantly Adrien’ and he was like ‘dumbass I meant like a date’ and I still didn’t get what he was saying, and then-” She had to stop because they were both struggling not to laugh at her. “Shut up I’m serious. Then the next time it happened, Adrien wanted to ask Kagami out, so I sneakily offered to go along as ‘moral support’ for his date, so I basically hijacked his date and dragged Luka with me.” Damian couldn’t help it. It was just so ridiculous he had to laugh. 

“No way. _You? Seriously?_ ” Jon wheezed.

“Hey, I used to be insanely sneakier than I am now.” She defended herself. 

“Elaborate.” Damian choked out.

“No.”

“Fine. But you still have the next round.”

“Shit. Alright, truth or dare.” Damian gave her a blank look, wondering what the hell was about to happen, and finally said, 

“Dare.”

“I dare you to make Jon add some breadsticks to the order for me.” Oh hallelujah. She’s not an asshole. _Well, to me, anyway._

“You have got to be kidding.” Jon sighed, and went back to his phone. 

“Jon truth or dare?”

“Dare.” He sighed, already knowing what was about to happen. 

“Buy the woman some breadsticks.”

“Already on it. Marinette, truth or dare.”

“Dare.” She also grabbed her phone. 

“I dare you to elaborate on the sneakiness.” She bit her lip, and set her phone back down.

“Ok, so, funny story, I may or may not be terrible at leaving voice messages which may or may not have made me want to delete the messages off of whoevers phone it was, which… uh… may or may not have led to me becoming a notorious phone thief so I could delete the messages.” They stared at her blankly.

“That’s a lot of hypotheticals, Marinette.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I also might or might not have memorised my friends entire lives by accident, which made stealing from them really really easy.”

“How? How do you memorise people’s lives by  _ accident?” Oh, Jon doesn’t know. I forgot to tell him about that. _

“I just… I just remember things. Really easy. And I pick up on patterns easy too. I guess it helped that my classmates were really predictable people.” She shrugged again. Then she scrunched her nose at thinking about them. 

“Huh.” 

“Damian, truth or dare.”

“Dare.”

“Lick the blanket.” She gave a very blank expression. Extremely unreadable.  _ Damn, she’s good. _

“Are you-”

“Dead serious.” She nodded. “Lick the blanket.”

He gave her a strange look before giving the blanket a horrified one. It was  _ felt _ .

“ _ Why _ am I doing this?”

“Because I asked you to.” He cringed, hating this stupid game, and then licked the felt blanket. It tasted horrid, and he had to pick a piece of felt off his tongue. She burst into laughter. 

“Nice.” Jon smiled. 

“Did you get that, Jon?” She asked, and he glared daggers at them both.

“Oh hell yeah I got it.” He ended the video and set his phone down. 

“Good, send it to me.”

“I hate you both.  _ So _ much.”

“We know. We love you too.” Jon grinned up at him, and Marinette gave him finger guns to show her appreciation of him. 

“This is so not over.”

“We know.”

“Jon, truth or dare.” He glared at him. 

“Truth.”

“Have you ever cheated off of me in school?”

“Every day.”

“What the hell, dude.”

“What? You’re the only reason I’m passing!”

“That’s a serious problem.” Marinette snorted at him. 

She’s lightening up, He noted. Maybe he should do more of these more often, if it made her happy. That would be good. 

“Marinette, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“Make a twitter.”

“What?”

“I want you to make a twitter.” He shrugged. She seemed to put a lot of thought into it. 

“But I really don’t want my old classmates finding it.” She said quietly.  _ Damn it, Jon _ .

“Well what if you made it, like, a cryptid account?”

“What’s a cryptid account?”

“Like, you have a silly name that’s not connected to your real name and you just post a bunch of bullshit and people say ‘wow that’s some quality garbage right there’ and follow you. For the random bullshit.” She thought it over for a second.

“That… that actually sounds kinda fun.” She opened her phone, and Jon scooted over next to her to help. Damian moved closer to watch. 

* * *

“Ok, now you need a sick username.”

“A sick username?” She repeated. 

“Yeah. Like…” He thought for a second. “Well, some of my favorites are Pukicho, who’s like Pikachu but all messed up, and I-Am-A-Fish, but that's a Tumblr. Or Thoughts-Of-Dog.” She took this into consideration. 

“What about…” She paused. “Marinara Sauce.”

“Are you sure that’s not too close to your name?” Damian pointed out. She thought about it, and came up with something else. 

“Ooh I got one.” She put it in. It wasn’t taken. “Oh good.” She set it, put her same as The Greatest Sauce Of All.

“Nice.” Jon nodded in approval. “Now make your first post.”

“Uh…” She rubbed her chin in thought, and then posted, 

**@SuperSauce** :

_ ‘Hey Damian, truth or dare?’ _

“Seriously, Marinette?”

“Yes. Very seriously.”

“You don’t even follow me. Or anyone. Nor did you tag me. How the hell are we supposed to explain this?”

“Do it, bitch.”

“Fine.” He grumbled, and pulled out his own phone. 

**@TheBestWayne** :

**_‘@SuperSauce_ ** _ Dare. _ ’

“You do realise that-”

“Damian why are you verified?”

“Ah. About that.” Jon laughed at her expression. “We’re all verified. Jon is, too, since Dick posts about us so much.”

“Huh.”

  
  



	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Sings dramatically* "Who's ready for some depressing shit~"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot. to edit. Oh god. So sorry.

Monday morning, Mme. Bustier's class was in an uproar. 

“What the hell do you _mean_ you saw Marinette this weekend?” Lila shrieked. 

“I mean, she was at that tournament I was in, and I saw her, and I tried to talk to her, and then some rich asshole decided to yell at me for trying to ask her to come back to us, and then she ran off.” Adrien shrugged.

“No way.” Rose shook her head. “She wouldn’t willingly run off again, she must be being forced to.”

“Oh, this is all my fault!” Lila cried. “I made her so jealous she had to run away!”

“Oh, no, Lila honey, that can’t be right.” Alya tried to comfort her. “She was always so angry, she was mad at everyone, you can’t be the sole reason she’s gone.”

“No, I think Lila is perfectly to blame.” Adrien glared at her. “If Lila hadn’t started the lie I was cheating on Marinette, she wouldn’t have become suspicious.” 

“Adrien, how could you?” Alya frowned at him. “Why would you be so mean to Lila?”

“Oh, I don’t know, how could Lila be at fault for convincing Marinette to run away?” He snapped back. “If she had just stayed with me, everything would have been fine!” No one heard Chloé say, 

“Bullshit.” At the front of the room. They were all too busy blaming each other to notice the real reason she left in the first place. 

Because of all of them, collectively. 

Alix threw her pencil at the wall, and walked out of the class. 

Chloé followed.

* * *

Monday morning at GA went much differently. 

Marinette’s depression was slowly growing, and she had to fix her morning makeup three times before she finally collected herself enough to do it right. 

She had faked a smile all the way through her conversation with Kagami, and when she hung up, she felt relieved. 

Then she felt guilty for feeling relieved, and felt like shit all over again. 

She stood up from the floor, and stared blankly at herself in the mirror. 

_We have to try today._

_Yeah, but try what? To try being worse?_

_We have to try to be better._

_Better than what? Rock bottom?_

_We have to try and get better._

_And how do you propose we do that?_

_I could try… asking for help. Getting_ **_better_ ** _._

_Yeah right, like someone has the time for you._

_I’ll never know if I never ask._

“Plagg?” She whispered. 

“Yeah, kid?”

“Am I… am I anything like he was?” She didn’t know if she wanted to know the truth. 

“Oh _god_ no.” Plagg was offended she even thought so. “You are _much_ better than he ever was.”

“Are you sure? Are you sure the-”

“You aren’t being corrupted by chaos, Marinette. This kind of stuff?” He sat on her shoulder, and waved at her in the mirror. “Is completely normal. Having feelings are completely human. Asking for help? That’s a necessary part of life kid, ok?” His nasally voice assured her. 

“Ok.” She took a shaky breath. “Ok.” The makeup was removed. It wasn’t started over.

* * *

Damian was sitting across from Marinette’s seat, waiting for her to come get her breakfast, when she ended up sitting next to him. 

“You ok?” He asked her, frowning. 

“Nope.” She put her face in his arm. He would have worried about makeup, but realised she wasn’t wearing any. 

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not sure yet.”

“Ok.” He went back to his laptop. 

“Good morning, all.” Jon sat in Marinette’s abandoned seat. 

“Good morning, J.”

“Mh.” Marinette contributed. 

“Please tell me one of you is good at math.” Bella didn’t make a habit of joining them often, she had plenty of friends, unlike them who just stuck to each other, but she still came sometimes. 

“Sure.” Jon took the paper from her, and started to fill in random numbers. 

“I said someone who can do math, Jon.” She deadpanned. 

“You have Mr. Grindle. He doesn’t check shit. If you do it, you get an A.” She looked skeptical.

“If I get anything less than a B, you owe me ten bucks.”

“Deal.”

The bell rang. 

“Marinette, we have to go.” He couldn't stand up, he would knock her over. 

“No~.” She whined. 

“We’re going to class whether I have to drag you or not.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“You know what.” He stood up, and she wasn’t prepared. 

She fell onto the floor, and he grabbed one of her ankles. 

“Damian, you asshole!” She yelled, and attempted to sand up. But she was struggling with one of her legs being held over her head. 

“I said I would, you didn’t listen.” He started to pull her towards the cafeteria door. 

The whole room was frozen, watching them. 

“My skirt is gonna catch!” He turned to look at her, but could see her fighting a smile. 

“You ready to walk, now?” 

“Yes!” She insisted, and he dropped her leg. She did a back handspring, and landed on her feet. “Ok. lets go.”

“Show off.” She grabbed his arm. 

“Oh please. If I were showing off I would have done at least seven, and a backflip.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” He didn’t fight her holding onto him. He knew she needed it.

“Try me, bitch.”

* * *

Francoise Dupont was up in enraged chaos. Gotham Academy was up in confused chaos.

* * *

  
  
  


“So, what are everyone’s plans for tomorrow?” Jon asked at lunch.

“Tomorrow? What’s tomorrow?” Marinette frowned. Her two friends stared at her. 

“What do you mean what’s tomorrow?” Damian asked her, slightly horrified. 

“It’s… October 31st?” She tried. 

“Marinette.” Jon set his fork down on the table. “Marinette, please.” He had a sad strange look in his eyes. 

“What?” She insisted. “Is it a holiday?” Damian facepalmed. 

“ _Is it a holiday_?” He repeated, shaking his head. 

“Tell me!” She slammed her hand down on the table. 

“Marinette, it’s H _alloween_.” She tilted her head at him. 

“What… What's Halloween?” She was almost too scared to ask. Damian rose from his seat in disbelief. 

“You. You’re coming over tomorrow.”

“It’s a school night, though.” She frowned. 

“You. Are coming over. To my house. Tomorrow. To watch movies.” She nodded. 

“Ok. I’ll just… bring my uniform then.”

“Good.” He sat back down, and she was thoroughly confused by the whole interaction. 

* * *

That night, Bella was at a birthday party. She had the room to herself. 

“Plagg.” She whispered. 

“Yeah, kid?”

“I… I really don’t want to be a miraculous holder anymore. I think… I think the constant fear is getting to me.”

“You want to retire from the responsibility, but you're afraid that since you’ve moved to a city that if you take it off you’ll get into a situation where you need it.”

“Yeah.” 

“But you don’t want a different one because this one is the most powerful one besides Tikki, and you’re too traumatized by Tikki to wield the earrings.” 

“Yeah.” She breathed. 

“So wear the turtle for a little bit. See how you feel about that.”

“Ok.” 

“And if you miss me, you can always bring me back. You know where to find me.”

“Thanks, Plagg.” She said as she took her necklace off. 

She placed the ring back in the Miracle Box, and pulled out the turtle bracelet. 

“Hello, Guardian.” Wayzz smiled sadly at her. 

“Hello, Wayzz.” She smiled back at him as she put the bracelet on. 

Out of curiosity, she walked in and locked the bathroom door. 

“Wayzz, shell on.” She whispered, and she was encased in a dark green light. 

She opened her eyes. 

She seemed to be wearing what looked like a dark green tracksuit with gray accents. 

Thank god it's not another catsuit. 

She had big green goggles, like Carapace’s. Except hers were shaped less oval-y and more circle-y. 

The dark green came halfway up her neck, and her hands were covered in gray gloves. 

She was wearing what looked like they should be gray converse, and her hair was put back into space buns. But she had yellow ribbons instead of red ones. They matched her yellow headband. 

“What in the name of fuck.” She said a little louder than she wanted to. 

Sure, her hair looked a little too similar to Multi-Mouse, but… She kinda liked it. 

She had liked being Multimouse, it was cute. And so was this. 

It was… super cute. 

Much less depressing than Ladybug or Black Cat.

But that didn’t take Black Cat out of the picture. 

Maybe she could combine Black Cat and… 

“Emerald Shell.” She whispered. Yeah, that seemed to work. 

She wondered what Plagg and Wayzz would look like combined on her. Probably hot as hell. 

“Shell off.” She walked out of the bathroom, and went to sleep. 

She had nightmares about Chat Blanc.

  
  



	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whooooooooooo update time. I think is the.... fourth? Fifth? For today? IDK. 
> 
> Here we get to see Damian putting half a braincell to some actual good use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it isn't clear, this is *immediately* the next day, and she's angry because of the nightmare.

“Ready for tonight?” Damian asked her. She stared at her plate. 

“Hello?” Jon waved a hand at her, and she grabbed his wrist. 

“Don’t test me, I will  _ break  _ you.” She snarled.  _ Shit _ . 

“You ok?” He asked softly. She let go.

“Do I fucking  _ look _ ok to you?” He noticed the ring was gone. He hoped it hadn’t been stolen, that would cause many problems. 

“What happened?”

“None of your business.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“No.”

“Well, you’re my friend now, and friends tell each other when things happen. So. What happened?” She stabbed her eggs.

“Nightmare.” She grumbled. He knew about those. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you, though?” She snapped. He saw instant regret in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” Jon intervened, “You probably feel like no one understands you and you're alone, and I won’t pretend to know what happened, but I’ll tell you I’ve had my fair share of awful days.” She hand started to shake, and she tried to hide them under the table. It didn’t work. 

“Yeah.” She whispered. “Yeah, I feel like shit, and I had a nightmare about Chat Noir going crazy and becoming Chat Blanc and trying to kill me again, and it was really bad.”

“Chat- What?” He was confused. 

“It was such an awful event the whole fucking timeline got erased. I got stuck with the memories.” She looked like she didn’t want to talk about it, and was forcing herself to. “I never told anyone, but I don’t… I don’t think I can take this shit anymore. I-” She started to cry. “I wanna go home.” They froze. They didn’t know what to do with this information. 

“Can we go to my home instead? Is that better?” Damian said quietly. 

“I don’t care. I just don’t want to be here.”

“Come on. Let’s get out of here.” 

“I’ll cover for you.” Jon offered. 

“You’re the best.”

“I know.”

  
  


“Alright.” She had curled into him in the car on the way there, and he was now carrying her up a set of stairs. “I’m gonna show you my favorite spot here.”

“Ok.” 

“It’s in the library. There’s a big window, and there’s a little sitting spot in the window, and there’s pillows, lots of pillows, and it’s big enough to take a nap in.”

“Ok.” She was still crying a little bit.

She climbed down when he came up to the spot, and then hugged her knees close to her chest. She sniffled again. 

“So.” He sat down next to her. She leaned her full weight on his shoulder. “You feel any better?” She shook her head. “You want to talk about it?”

“I don’t want to, but I…” She took a shaky breath. “I think I have to.”

“You don’t _have_ to do anything.” He tried. 

“No. I do. This is… it’s been eating away at me for _months_.” She confessed. “Driving me crazy.” She paused before continuing. “Adrien was Chat Noir. He was obsessed with Ladybug, and… and me. And I did something to him as a civilian that made him think I was Ladybug, and he got akumatized into Chat Blanc, and he started to try and torture me. He did the same thing to Ladybug. And then Bunnyx had to pull me out of the timeline, because Chat… Chat Blanc killed an insane amount of people, and Ladybug couldn’t stop him. Hawkmoth… he won. And it was my fault. I made one mistake, and I let the bag guy win.”

“No.” He tried to comfort her. “Your not at fault for Ladybug’s messing up-”

“Except he was right.” She cut him off, her eyes and voice hollow. 

“What?”

“ _I was Ladybug_. He was right. I was at fault for him becoming Chat Blanc and I didn’t stop him from killing so many people and I… I was at fault for Hawkmoth winning.” He had no idea what to say to that. 

This whole time he had figured Ladybug to be a bad person in this scenario, and that Marinett had been training to be better than her. 

But she was her. 

Ladybug was trying to stop everyone else. 

Marinette knew her classmates' identities because they had been her fault. 

Multi-Mouse had been a fake-out to avoid being suspected. 

“And I never told anyone. Because I was such a good guardian. I did everything I could to protect people, and in the end it amounted to nothing but losing.” She started to cry harder. “I lost everything. My friends, my family, my partner and my boyfriend. I lost  _ everything _ . I lost it for  _ doing what I was supposed to _ .” She let go of her knees, and he pulled her into a hug. “I did everything right, and _ I still lost _ .” She hiccuped. “He figured out I was Ladybug by stalking me, and didn’t tell me. He just got closer to me as Adrien, tried to help me get over my depression, and the worst part was that… he really did help. For a while there, I was fine. I felt happier, until he let slip and called me princess one day by accident. He called me Chat Noir’s nickname for me, and I almost didn’t figure it out, but then he said ‘sorry M’Lady’ which was Chat’s nickname for Ladybug, and… I felt so betrayed.”

“So that’s why you don’t like nicknames.”

“He was playing me. He was lying to me, he was… he was just  _ using _ me for some dumb dream he had.  _ His stupid fantasy cost me everything _ .” 

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, and leaned back against the wall, pulled her with him.  _ “I’m so sorry.” _ She cried for a few minutes until she fell asleep, and eventually the warm sun in the huge window lulled him to sleep as well. 

* * *

Bruce came home from work early, and noticed a door slightly ajar that shouldn’t have been. 

He looked in to see two kids in matching bright blue uniforms holding onto each other in their sleep. 

He snapped a picture, and let them be, having a slight feeling that if the wet stains on his son's shirt were anything to go off of, they should be left alone. 

They could talk about this growing school-skipping problem later. 

* * *

  
  


She woke up to feeling like her hands were being crushed. 

Then she realised she was on top of whatever was crushing her hands. 

Then she realised ‘whatever’ was Damian crushing her hands. 

And she was on top of him. 

Somehow, she didn’t mind this. 

He was warm. 

The sun coming in the window was warm. 

She felt more at ease here than she had in years. 

And that was seriously saying something. 

She closed her eyes, wiggled her fingers slightly so they were no longer getting destroyed by his vertebrate, and fell back asleep.

* * *

Damian opened his eyes, and _immediately_ scrunched them shut again. 

He wished he had the power to turn the sun off at his convenience. 

Fuck the sun. 

But then he opened them again, and looked at Marinette, who was using him as a pillow. 

He looked at her, and she was smiling in her sleep. 

_ She’s smiling. Because of me _ .

He felt a surge of pride, and then set his head back down with his newfound satisfaction. He immediately lost all of it when the clouds parted and the sun shone directly into his retinas. He snarled at the window. 

_ I need to install some curtains up in this bitch. _

* * *

The next time she woke up, it was because she smelled food. 

Her eyes snapped open when she realised she had slept for nearly four hours. 

“Lunch.” She mumbled, and heard a funny noise come from underneath her. 

“Oh yay.” He started to sit up, and ended up dumping her on the floor.

Instead of the snarky remark he was prepared for, she giggled. 

“Gee, thanks.” She smirked, and he looked at what Alfred had managed to sneak to them.

* * *

Jon showed up after school. 

“Marinette, make sure to look extra miserable tomorrow, I said you went home puking.”

“I almost did.” She said, having yet again ditched the uniform for some of Damian’s old clothes, and munched on some cookies she had stress-baked. 

“Oh, even better. It might make it believable.” She snorted. 

She pulled out her phone, and frowned at it after a few seconds. 

“Uh, guys?”

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t opened my twitter since Saturday, and… uh…”

“What?” Damina walked over from the stove to see what she was looking at. 

* * *

**Melinda May**

@MayFlower

_ ‘Is anyone else worried about a page opening up out of nowhere, interacting with Ice Prince, and disappearing immediately afterwards???’ _

**It’s Merida Bitch,**

@PrettyPrincessHoe

_ ‘They just showed up out of nowhere…. They just disappeared out of nowhere…’ _

* * *

“Uh, I have seven thousand followers.” She sounded confused. “Why do I have seven thousand followers?”

“Well post a lot more, the number will go up.”

“Oh no.” She sighed. 

“Alright, movie time.” Jon grabbed a bowl of popcorn, and they ran to the living room. 

They found themselves awake at three am, even though they had to get up for school in… three hours. 

“Are we pulling an all-nighter?” Jon asked, and reached his hand out, expecting someone to hand him some cereal. 

“I’m glad we took that nap, I’ll need it.”

“Me too.” Damian agreed with her as she handed the cereal box to Jon.

“Thanks, M.” He mumbled. The other two froze. 

“What did you call me?” 

“Jon, we talked about the nickname thing.” Damian gave him a disappointed look. 

“Oh, shit, my bad.”

“Actually…” A smile crept onto her lips. “I kinda like it as a nickname. It matches Damians.”

“Wait, so I can call you M?” He sat up in his chair. “For real?”

“Yeah. I think it sounds cool.”

“Does that mean you’re gonna start calling me J?”

“Do you want me to?”

“I mean… it would be kinda cool…”

“Damian, are you on board?”

“I’m alright with it.” He shrugged, and started up some coffee. They would need it. 

* * *

Tired as hell, and not giving two fucks about it, the three of them walked into school at the same time, and pushed people out of their way to get to class. 

But first, Marinette needed to fill herself a water bottle. 

So they made their way to a water fountain, and they both leaned against the wall as she filled her bottle, daring someone to look at them the wrong way.

“Done.” She said, and they walked off together. 

“Oh look, it’s the Heathers.” Someone said under their breath, but loud enough for people to hear. 

When they walked past him, Damian grabbed his head, and threw it into a wall. Marinette paused, and observed the situation blankly. 

“You threw him too hard, D, you’re gonna _ kill him _ next time.” She stated flatly, and then moved on. 

“Sorry, M.”

“Nah, don’t be. I would find it hilarious.”

“Looks like he should have gone with The Plastics instead.” Jon snickered. 

“Did you just make a  _ Mean Girls _ joke, J?” Damian looked at him like he was crazy.

“I call being Regina George.” Marinette smirked. “And Damian can be my Gretchen.”

“Wait, does that mean I’m Karen?” Jon wondered aloud as they made their way into Mr. Frost’s chemistry class. 

“Oh my god, your the Karen.” Marinette cackled. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so now that Damian knows that Marinette was Ladybug, but she has no idea he's Robin, WHAT COULD *POSSIBLY* GO WRONG???!!!! 😊😊😊😊😊!!!!!!!!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hm..... How can I progress the plot forward from the hero angle? Ah! I know! I'll steal what few braincells they have left!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to edit again. Oops.

Of course they got help up in a convenience store. What else was Gotham good for?

“Everybody back!” A guy with a gun yelled, waving it at them. 

Jon reflexively grabbed Marinette and Damian, and put himself between them and the guy.

“Back!” He yelled, and they complied. 

Damian pulled his hood down over his face, and Marinette grabbed Jon’s shirt. She stared into his eyes as she walked backwards. 

“I can stop him.” She said as quietly as possible, knowing he could still hear her clear as day. “Just get me out of here.” He gestured to where her ring no longer sat around her neck. She gave him a look of earnestness, and he bit his lip. 

_‘Fine.’_ He mouthed, and made a distraction while she bolted. 

“Hey!” A guy yelled at him, and he made a fearful face, putting his hands up in the air. The man seemed to be satisfied by his ‘fear’ and walked away. 

“Where the hell is M?” Damian hissed at him. 

“She snuck out.” He whispered back. “Don’t worry about her. She can kick ass plenty.”

“That’s not what I’m afraid of.” He whispered. “I’m scared of-” A green disk came flying out of nowhere, knocking one of them over. 

“I believe you have something of mine.” A woman in a deep green tracksuit that seemed to hug her figure appeared. 

_Are you fucking kidding me?_ **_That’s_ ** _what she goes with?_

She vaulted over the second of the three guys, picked up her green shield in a handspring, and landed in front of them holding it up. One of them laughed, and started firing. 

A green bubble appeared around them, and he understood now. 

The green one was the turtle one, the protective one. 

She dropped the glowing green orb when they stopped firing, and threw her shield so it bonked them in the heads and came back to her. She ran forward, jumped off of a shelf and kicked one of them, twisting in the air so she used her shield to deflect bullets. 

“Who the hell is that?” One of the other people in the store asked. 

“No idea.” Jon said, truthfully. He had no idea who the _hero_ was. 

She used her shield as a weapon, smashed the third guy in the face, and turned to answer the question. 

“Emerald Shell.” She winked, and her bracelet started to glow. “Gotta run, though. See you later!” She did a backflip out a hole in the window, and disappeared. 

“I can’t tell if that was a pun or not.” Damian looked disgusted at the potential of it being a pun. “Horrifying. Terrible. I hope she has a bad day.” Jon snorted, and walked out to look for Marinette. He knew exactly where to find her. 

“Marinette?” Damian yelled, and she ran out from where she had been ‘hiding’. 

“I called the police, they should be here soon.” She grabbed him, and hugged him. Jon, being slightly taller than Damian, hugged them both. 

“Don’t pull that shit again, ok?” Damian said quietly. “You… you scared me.”

“I make no promises.” She said, unconvincingly. That gave him, no, _both_ of them, a very bad feeling. 

For two very different reasons. 

But as he leaned down to hug her again, his glasses fell down and bonked her on the head which made her laugh. 

He pushed his glasses back up onto his face, and they walked with her back to the student dorms. 

* * *

She knew some people might have some questions. 

She didn’t want to answer them as Emerald Shell, that would be a level of lying and bullshitting all on it’s own.

So she went as Black Cat.

And she knew they would be a little suspicious.

She did not expect to be met with anger. 

“Alright, look!” Robin started to storm towards her as he found her on a rooftop, pretty far away from the school. 

“Looks like Babybirds got a cat of his own, now.” Red Hood laughed in the distance. 

“SHUT UP! Look, Tiny Cat, you and me have a problem, and we’re gonna solve this right here right now.” He marched up to her, and she stared at him. He was pretty tall. She was not. 

“Problem?” She asked.

“You. You have a magic ring. That’s where your powers come from.”

“How the hell did you-” She was thoroughly confused. 

“Last I checked, Ladybug had taken the ring from Chat Noir.”

“Look, dude, I don’t know what-” He wasn’t done.

“You’re gonna tell me how you got it. You’re gonna give me a very detailed description of how you got it, or else I kill you. Got it?” She recoiled slightly, and wondered what she should tell him. 

“I was Ladybug, dumbass.” She came up with, “I took it from him and I kept it. I’m also Emerald Shell on top of Black Cat _and_ Ladybug. I’m the damn guardian, I hold literally _all_ of the Miraculous.”

“Well then why don’t you _stay_ being Ladybug, then?” He was clearly panicked by this answer. She wondered why. 

“Bold of you to assume I can stand to look at that damn costume without crying.” She hissed at him. That seemed to throw him for a loop. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah _oh_.” She grumbled. “So take your interrogation and shove it up your ass.” She backflipped over the edge of the building angrily, and disappeared. 

* * *

“I swear I was just here a second ago.” Superboy landed on her roof. 

“Yeah? Me too.” She de-transformed. Plagg appeared next to her. 

“Let me guess, you have some questions?” Plagg crossed his little kwami-arms. 

“Actually, out of the two of us, I’m the respectful one. Robin probably has more questions than I do.”

“Hm.” Plagg looked him up and down, and then zipped off to go find some cheese. 

“Be careful.” He warned her. She nodded. 

“I will.”

So she was Ladybug. 

An old man had given her the miracle box. 

Marinette had gotten the ring from her old ‘instructor’ of sorts who was very not dead according to J.

Marinette had been Ladybug. And Multi-Mouse. And Black Cat. And Emerald Shell.

Damian had all the evidence. 

He just needed solid proof. 

Unfortunately, he got it. Three days later, when she had her ass handed to her by Mr. Freeze. How that happened will forever remain a mystery.

* * *

She registered that there were four other people in the room when she came to. 

At first, she couldn’t hear anything, she was still trying to wake up, but she kept her eyes closed. Just in case. 

“Well we can’t just leave her here, that would be rude.” That sounded like… Tim?

“Well it’s not like we can just say ‘hey we dumped you off a safe house, with love, the bats’ that would be a bit creepy, honestly.” Why was Dick here? Why was he talking about bats? She had no idea. She wanted to go back to sleep-

No. She had to stay awake. Judge her surroundings. Find out what happened, and-

She heard a clicking noise. 

It didn’t seem to be coming from inside the room, but it was loud enough in her ears she heard it just fine. Which meant that… _Oh god I’m still transformed_.

“I swear to fuck this thing is driving me crazy.” She heard. That was Jon. Jon was trying to open the door. He could not open the door. Which meant it must be locked. 

“Well what the hell do you propose we do, you don’t want to leave her and you don't want to move her, and that creates a problem, in which-” _Oh good, Damian’s here too,_ She thought. Then everything stopped, and she realised she said that out loud. “Hey Damian, can you open the door? Jon seems to be absolute shit at picking locks.” 

* * *

"Oh good, Damian's here too."

Her eyes weren’t even open. Her eyes weren’t even open, and she knew he was there. 

How?

“Uh, I’m not Damian?” He tried. 

“Bullshit. I would know your voice anywhere, I don’t have to see you to know it’s you.” Red Robin opened the door, and sure enough, Superboy fell over the threshold. 

He got over himself, and rushed to crouch down next to Black Cat. 

“Are you ok?” He pulled her to her feet, and she finally opened her eyes. 

* * *

Everyone was staring at her funny. That was when she realised she was staring at Robin, Red Robin, and Batman. 

Oh. 

She called Robin Damian. 

Because he was Damian. 

And she was saying that to Robin

Robin was Damian Wayne. 

She called him that because it was true and he was standing right next to her.

Marinette had told Damian about being Ladybug the other day.

Black Cat told Robin she was Ladybug.

Robin knew she was Marinette.

“Well shit.” She said. 

“Yeah. Shit.”

  
  



	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even after the emotional rollercoaster, they still get on each others nerves more than anything.

Jon, Marinette, and Damian sat around a small circular table, not really knowing where to begin. 

“How long have you known?” Damian asked Jon.

“Since day one.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” She grumbled. 

“What the hell do you mean you  _ didn’t _ -”

“She got shot, Damian.” Jon said, agitatedly. “She got chased, and I didn’t make it in time. She transformed into Black Cat so she wouldn’t die.” Damian considered this.

“I’ve only ever been Black Cat that night, the other night and tonight. All three times because I was in a weird situation, and it was one that Marinette couldn’t solve.”

“Fine.” He seemed satisfied by that answer. “But the hell was up with Emerald Shell?”

“I…” She tapped her hands on the table nervously. “The ring was making me nervous. I was scared that my depression was causing me to… to turn into  _ him _ .” They let that sink in for a second. 

“Never.” Damian scooted his chair closer to hers. “You will never be anything like him, ok? You are perfectly ok with us, and we like you just fine how you are, even if we do want to see you get better.”

“Thanks.” She mumbled. “Appreciate it.”

“What I don’t know is why Jon didn’t tell me.” He gave his other friend a pointed look. 

“She made me promise not to.” He shrugged. “And I’m no snitch.” Damian scowled at him. 

“Valid.” He growled, although he didn’t want to. “But M, how long have you…”

“I became Ladybug when I was thirteen.” She tried not to scratch the table, but her hands were shaking and her fingers were curling. “I… I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was the only person capable of doing it. That’s what Fu said, anyway. He said I had to do it. I didn’t even want to, but…” She sniffled, and scrunched her eyes shut. 

* * *

Damian was going to kill this man. 

Seriously? A _ thirteen _ year old?

Sure, he had been ten when he started out as Robin, but he also was capable of killing a man 200 different ways. She was capable of… falling on her ass. 

No offense. 

“I tried to quit.” She confessed. “I really did. But… the girl I tried to give the earrings got killed by the akuma, and I had to make a choice. I chose not to walk away. I chose to ignore everything telling me not to and I did it anyway.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” There was silence again. “So, how long have you been Robin?”

“Since I was ten.” He really didn’t want to talk about himself. But they would have to eventually. 

“You have three years on me, then.”

“Four.” He corrected. “I’m seventeen. It was my birthday, like, four days before you showed up.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Happy birthday, then.”

“Thanks.” He snorted. 

“I’ll make you a birthday present.” She nodded very seriously. 

“No, you really don’t have to, it was before you even-”

“I’m going to make you a birthday present.” She stared at him, refusing to back down. He caved. 

“Fine.”

“Good.” She nodded. “I want pizza.” 

* * *

  
  


Period three on Tuesday morning, Marinette was called to the office. 

“Mr. Gray?” Jon raised his hand, and the teacher sighed. 

“Yes, Mr. Kent, you may be excused in the pretense you are going to the bathroom but are actually going to find your friend.” The teacher sighed. Giggles erupted through the classroom. 

“You’re the best, Mr. Gray.” He grabbed his backpack, and walked out. 

“I know.” The teacher sighed. 

Marinette was confused. 

“So you’re telling me there is a holiday in two weeks?”

“Yes ma’am, it’s called Thanksgiving, and you get to make arrangements to go home for the week-long break.” She nodded, and was handed a small packet to fill out. 

“Ok. When can I call my parents to ask them about when I can come home? They’re busy people, and… You know, time zones would make it hard to call after or before school. ” 

“You can call them right now, if you would like.” She checked the time, and did some quick math. The lunch rush should be getting over. 

“Thank you.” She pulled out her phone, and Jon walked around the corner. She waved, and he sat down on the bench in the entryway to the school. She sat down next to him. 

He read the paper over her shoulder as she dialled the bakery. 

“Going home, M?”

“For a week. You can survive a week without me.” She teased before her mother picked up. 

“Marinette?” Her mother answered the phone. 

“Maman! Good news, so, apparently, there’s a holiday here in the US, so they’re letting me go home to visit for a week! It’s the last week of november, so when would be a good time to be able to come pick me up?” 

* * *

Her feet didn’t reach the floor. 

She swung her legs back and forth as she talked to her mother in her native language. 

He didn’t understand any of it, but he wished he did as he watched her facial expressions change. 

At first, she felt hopeful about seeing her family again, but as she kept talking her look got darker and darker.  _ What the hell? _

“Marinette?” He whispered, “Are you ok?” She tried to blink back tears, and she said something quietly before hanging up the phone. 

“Hey.” She whispered hollowly as she put her phone in her backpack. 

“What happened?”

“They… they think going back to Paris wouldn’t be good for me, and they… they don’t want me coming home.”

“I’m sorry. But there’s always Christmas, at least.” He tried. She looked up at him, and shook her head. 

“They don’t want me coming home at all, J.” She wiped a tear away, and stood up. “They don’t want me around.” He stood up, and hugged her. 

“That’s not entirely true, you know. They want you here so you can heal. They want you to be happy.”

“I want to be happy at home.” She responded. He noticed she had the ring back on her necklace. 

Huh.

“You want to hang out with me over break?” He offered. 

“Really?” Her voice cracked. 

“Yeah. I’m sure mum won’t mind.” He knew she wouldn’t mind, she liked having company to bake pie for.

He just hoped Marinette liked pie.

“Thanks, J.”

“For what? Being a decent human?”

“For wanting me around.” She let go, and walked over to the front office to hand the packet back over. She asked them about getting permission to leave the dorms over break, but to not go back to Paris. 

They gave her a different paper.

She said she would call her parents later. 

He had a feeling she would forge the signatures. 

* * *

“Yo.” She set her phone down on the counter. 

“What?” Damian responded. 

“I’m struggling.”

“With what?”

“Everything?”

“You  _ may _ have to be a little more specific.”

“I…” She wondered where to start. “Well, basically, my parents don’t want me coming home to visit, they think it would be bad for me, even though I completely disagree, and it is very upsetting, and on top of that I can’t really do any of my usual Christmas commissions because I have no space to work. I’m already struggling with space as it is, and now I can’t do any-”

“What… what commission?”

“I run a fucking business, Damian. I would think you of all people would know that seeing as you spend half of your time stalking me.” She retorted sarcastically. 

“What?”

“Did you really not know?”

“No!”

“Dude.” She gave him a funny look over the screen. “Seriously?”

“What business?”

“Well now I’m not telling you.” She teased him. “Make you figure it out.”

“You are the worst.”

“I know.”

“Wait, go back to the Christmas part.” He realised what she had said earlier. 

“I get a lot of requests around christmas?” She frowned. 

“No, the other part. Why aren’t you going home over break?”

“Uh, my parents don't want me.” She said as bluntly as possible. 

“What the hell?” She could practically see him making a mental note not to let his father know. 

“Jon already offered for me to spend the break with him so I don’t get stuck in the dorm for a week straight with nothing to do.”

“Oh, good.”

“Yeah.” She made a loud clanking noise as she moved her sewing machine around. 

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

“Fuck off.”

“No.”

  
  



	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said 'Jon is going to be bringing out the Absolute Dumbest in Marinette'? Well, here it is. Their combined negative braincells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone pointed out my flaw so I had to fix it. My B.

“You ready? Jon asked her from her dorm room doorway.

“School literally got out like ten minuted ago, no, I’m not ready.” She grumbled. She took off her backpack, and dumped it’s contents onto her bed. 

She then started to stuff it full of her own clothes. And her nintendo switch. With her custom bright pink controllers. It was a necessary must-have.

She headed into the bathroom, threw on a pair of jeans, and the large black sweatshirt she still had from the first time she went to Wayne Manor. 

“Are you ready now?” He asked, and she grabbed the turtle miraculous before locking the box and nodded. 

“Ok. _Now_ I’m ready.” She threw her hair up into a high ponytail. 

* * *

“Why on earth would you _intentionally_ want to drive a truck in a city?” She wondered aloud as she hopped in. 

“Because fuck you that’s why.” He plugged his phone into an aux cord, and started to play some music Marinette had never heard before. 

“What? You don’t like country, M?” He teased her. 

“It is… barely tolerable.” She stared at the dashboard, and then out the window. 

His house wasn't very far out of the city, and the Academy was fairly far out as it was. There was minimal traffic getting there. 

“It’s pretty.” She noted, and they marched inside. 

“Jon, what took you so long to-” A woman in a room next to a staircase paused. “Oh. Hello. You must be why he took so long to get home.”

“Uh…” She looked over at her friend, confused. “Did you not tell them I was coming?”

“Oh, uh, Mom, can Marinette and Damian have a sleepover tonight?”

“Sure. We would love to have you, Marinette.” She went back to her desk, where she had been typing something on a computer. 

“Oh.” She followed him upstairs, and they plugged her switch into his TV. 

“Where did you get these controllers?” He examined the hot chrome pink with shiny black buttons and bright white joysticks. 

“Nowhere, I had them custom ordered.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it expensive?”

“Fairly.” She shrugged. “But that’s not really a problem, I get a lot of money for my artwork.”

“Artwork?”

“Seriously? Between you two dumbasses, _neither_ of you have figured it out?” She raised an eyebrow at him. 

“What are you talking about?” She shook her head as she opened a new game progile for them to start over with fresh stats. 

“I’m literally a famous artist, and you’re seriously telling me you don’t know that?”

“Well I’m not really into art!” He defended himself. She snorted. 

“I’m just kidding dude. I use a funny name, no one actually knows it’s me.”She rolled her eyes, and the credits started. “You, I’m not surprised. But Damian? He spends like half of his free time stalking me, I’m shocked he hasn’t figured it out yet.”

“How do you know he doesn’t know?”

“He had no idea why I owned a sewing machine.”

“Oh, so you sew things?”

“Don’t tell him that.”

“I can’t keep everything a secret, M. I’m shit at secrets.”

“Clearly.” She smirked. 

“Oh shut up.” He nodded at the TV. “So, how do I play?”

* * *

  
  


“M, are you wearing my shirt?” She looked up to find Damian staring at her from the doorway. 

“So what if I am?” She shrugged at him. 

“Well give it back.” He walked in and flopped himself down on Jons bed. 

“No.” She said while still looking at the TV. They had switched from her game to one of his. She was struggling at FIFA.

“Yeah, well, it’s mine.”

“Yeah, well, I forgot to put a shirt on under it so no you can’t have it back.” She snapped at him. He stopped arguing for it after that. 

* * *

After watching Marinette finally figure out how the controls worked, he went and made himself a plate of nachos. 

He sat back down by Jons headboard, and Marinette noticed the nachos. 

During a pause in the game, she stood up and ran to go sit next to him. 

“Ah.” She asked ( _yes, that was a question_ ), holding her mouth open as she stared at the TV.

“What the hell are you doing?” He frowned at her. She pouted without looking at him. 

“Nachos. Give me one.”

“No fuck you. Get your own.”

“I can’t! I’m playing!” She insisted. He sighed, and as she opened her mouth again, he carefully placed a chip in her mouth. She squealed excitedly, and he tried not to laugh at the dumb sound she made. 

“Happy now?” She nodded, and wiggled happily. 

“Another.” She demanded, and he rolled his eyes as he gave her another chip, munching on his own. 

“Remind me to make a bigger plate next time.” He grumbled, and she nodded seriously. 

“Oh yes. Many more. Much bigger. All for me.”

“ _Half_ for you.”

“Two thirds for me.”

“ _Half_ for _you._ ”

“Four sixths for me.”

“That’s the same as two thirds.”

“Se… five eights for me.”

“ _One half_ for you.”

“Um…. thirteen twenty-fourths? For me?”

“Fine. Thirteen twenty-fourths for you.” He grumbled, fully planning on giving her as many as she wanted. 

* * *

“Kids! Dinner!” Mrs. Lane yelled up at them. 

“Coming!” Jon yelled, and paused the game. Marinette gave him an evil glare as he set his controller down, and they all headed back down the stairs. 

“Here.” Jon handed her a plate, and she sat down at the fairly small square table. 

“Thanks.” He gave her a glass of water. 

“Yup.” They all sat down, as his father walked in. She froze, realising for the first time that… she was eating dinner with Superman. And he wasn’t supposed to know she knew. 

_Shit._

She just stared at her plate, trying to think about anything but that. 

Instead, she thought about her own parents. 

And how she hadn’t eaten with them in a long time. 

They were busy with the bakery, they had an event to prepare for, she was busy as Ladybug, she had a commision to work on. So many reasons, really, that she had distanced herself from them.

And now she was even sadder, looking at her two new friends who she had somehow gotten closer to than Kagami and Luka, and Jon's parents, who were really cool, and she felt… guilty.

She didn’t realise how much time passed as her mind raced. 

“Marinette, you have to eat more than just potatoes.” Damian sighed at her. 

“She didn’t put those there, I did.” Jon pointed out.

“M, what the hell.” Damian started to grab random food, and switched their plates. 

“I’m fine.” She mumbled, trying not to have a panic attack. 

“No, you're not.” Damian snapped. “You have to eat food so you don’t die.”

“Ok.” She slowly picked up a spoon for the potatoes. 

“You have to eat all of it.” 

“Mind your own business.”

“ _You are_ my business.”

“Screw you.”

“Eat your vegetables or I call Kagami.” He warned her. She huffed. 

“Fine.”

“How did you two go from arguing about mailing each other back to where you came from to nagging each other into being healthy?”

“Bug off.” They said at the same time, neither wanting to swear in front of adults.

“Jinx. Chocolate bar.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” 

“Uh, hello?” Clark offered, confusedly. 

“Hey dad.” Jon waved. 

“Hey Mr. Kent.” Damian nodded. 

“Hi.” Marinette gently stabbed a chunk of lettuce. 

“You must be new.” Mr. Kent acknowledged her. Her eyes went wide, and she nodded. 

* * *

Diana had mentioned something of small tiny flying creatures years ago.

He had thought she was full of shit, pulling a prank on him and the bat. 

But here he was.

Looking right at one. 

He would have to ask Diana about that later. 

* * *

“You know, I’ve thought about it a little, and I’ve kinda wanted to ask…” They went down into the basement in search of something interesting to do. 

“What?”

“You versus my shield. See what wins.” She shrugged. Jon considered it.

“Oh no.” Damian groaned, already knowing where this was going. Somewhere really bad. 

Either superboy was going to break his wrist, or Marinette was going to break her shield. And neither option was good. 

“Let’s do it.” Jon grinned. 

“Nope. No way. Not happening.” Damian shook his head. 

“Oh come on, D, it’ll be fine. What could possibly go wrong?”

“Famous last words, M.” He glared at her. She started yet another staring contest, but then transformed into Emerald Shell. The light was blinding, and he blinked first. And then he blinked a lot. 

“Awe hell.” He grumbled, rubbing his eyes. 

“You ready?” Jon asked, and she readiedher shield. 

“All good.”

“Ok. Three… two… one…” Superboy pulled his arm back, and punched the green shield. The most deafening noise came out of it. 

* * *

“What the hell was that?” Lois frowned from where she was working on her laptop. 

“Marinette has magic powers, and she just dared our son to use his super strength to try and see if he could break something indestructible of hers.” Clark responded. “A classic case of unstoppable force meets an immovable object.”

“Oh god.” She rose from her chair to go check on them. 

She reached for the basement door, and green light seemed to seep out under the door for a second. 

But as soon as it was there it was gone. 

“Hey, kids?” She yelled down the stairs. 

“Yeah?” they all three yelled back. 

“Everything all good down here?”

“We’re fine!” Jon yelled back.

“All good!” Marinette agreed. 

“Speak for yourselves, I think my ears are bleeding.” Damian groaned. 

“What happened?” She asked, wondering what they would come up with. 

“Dropped something.” Jon said at the same time Marinette tried

“Moved the couch.” They hesitated. 

“Uh, dropped something from moving the couch.” Jon said hurriedly. 

“Is everything ok, then?”

“Yup!”

“Never better!”

“Seriously, Jon, can you check and make sure my ears are fine?”

She pursed her lips, and decided to leave them alone. 

They should be fine. 

  
  



	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hoo boy.
> 
> hoo.
> 
> boy.

Marinette was in the process of getting a motorcycle. 

She had a license she had gotten for the bakery, after all, might as well put it to good use. 

But she wanted one that would match her game controllers. 

Bright chrome pink with black seats and accents, bright white handles and tired. 

She had saved up plenty from her commission money, she had more than enough to spare 75 g’s for a new bike. 

But that also meant it would take awhile to get done. 

They estimated a little after christmas.

In the meantime, she was stuck getting rides from Jon. And that was when he was available. 

They were at the mall, looking for inspiration for a project she was working on, when he got a text from Damian. 

“Want to go to the Manor?”

“Sure.” They ditched the mall, and headed to go find whatever was bugging the other boy. 

* * *

He was panicking over the series finale of one of his favorite shows. 

“I can’t do it, I can’t, I can’t watch it, I have to live forever not knowing how it all ends, and-”

“Damian chill.” Marinette frowned at him. “You’re fine.” He gave her a horrified look. 

“Fine?!” He shrieked, “I am not fine! I am awful! This is horrible, everything’s ending, and I can’t stand it!” He started to storm off, and Jon grabbed him by his shoulder, dragging him in front of the tv. 

“Well let’s all watch it together, then.”

“But I haven’t seen of the-”

“All. Together. M.” Jon gave her a pointed look.

“No, she’s right, she can’t watch the end if she hasn’t watched the beginning.” Damian pointed out. Jon sighed. 

“Seriously?”

“He’s right.” 

“Fine.” Jon pulled out his phone to text his mom. “Looks like we’re gonna be here a while.”

* * *

Marinette was sitting on the kitchen counter, alone, waiting for the popcorn to be done. 

It was a school night, but hey. 

She had stayed over on a school night before. 

It was a tuesday, they had the rest of the week to catch up if they ended up skipping tomorrow. 

“Hello Mr. Wayne.” She said as he walked into the kitchen, probably looking for Alfred. 

“Hello child who always seems to be wearing my children's clothes. Do you not have enough of your own clothes?” She laughed. 

“No, I have plenty of clothes, I just… forget.” She shrugged. “I never end up planning on staying the night, but Damian always somehow gets me to stay. And then I just wear his clothes.”

“Alright, then.” He nodded, and walked back out. 

A few minutes later, someone else walked in. 

“Hey, do you know if we have any-” He stopped. “Wait, I don’t know you.” Someone she didn’t recognize frowned at her. 

“I don’t know you either.” She shrugged. “And I probably know nothing about what you’re looking for.”

“Well…” He looked at her sideway, “You do have the blue-black hair and the blue eyes, so, uh, welcome to the family?” He made a face at her. 

“I thought I spotted a trend around here.” She stuck out a hand. “Marinette.”

“Duke.” He shook it. “You aren’t… actually adopted, are you?” She snorted. 

“No. Damian’s friend from school. I got a bad case of the new kid disease, and Jon forcefully made us get along.”

“Ah.” He nodded, and started to scour the cupboards for whatever it was he wanted. 

“Top left counter, Master Thomas.” Alfred said from the doorway. 

“Ah, thanks.” He ditched the pots and pans, and found the microwavable ramen. 

“Please don’t damage the counter, Guardian.” Alfred winked at her, and she fell off the counter in surprise. 

“How the hell do you know?” She practically shrieked. Duke was very lost in this conversation. 

“There is very little I don’t know, Emerald Shell.” He gave her a smile, and she wondered if she would panic. 

“What…” Duke frowned at her, waiting for his turn to use the microwave. 

“I…” The microwaved beeped, and she snatched the popcorn out of the microwave and ran off. 

She decided panicking wasn’t worth it, and shook it out of her head before going back to her friends. 

* * *

They all piled onto the couch as the pilot episode began. 

Towards the end of the second season of the three, she started to get a little tired. 

But Damian put his head on her shoulder, and she smiled into the top of his head. His hair was much fluffier than it looked. 

“M, did you just… did you just purr?” He sat up, and gave her a horrified look. She cringed. 

“Uh….” 

“Oh my god M, did you not tell him?” Jon started to laugh. 

“J knew?!” Damian recoiled on betrayal. 

“I may or may not have forgotten to mention that, I, uh…” She bit her lip. “Sometimes when a person is really compatible with a miraculous, the effects can leak into their civilian form. And I may or may not be slowly turning into a cat-based meta.”

“Seriously? You  _ conveniently _ forgot to tell me that?” He frowned at her. “Did you think I would hate you, or something?”

“No! I would never- well, maybe not _never_ , but I wouldn’t expect that of you! And also… I’ve started being able to hear better, too.” She confessed. “If I keep up being Black Cat, I might have super hearing on par with Jon.”

“No way.” Damian scowled, and leaned back down on her. “All my friends are supers and I’m not. No fucking fair.”

“Shut up and watch your show.” Jon threw a snack wrapper at his head. He hissed as he swatted it away.

* * *

The three showed up at school the next day, dead tired as always. 

They had stayed up watching all three seasons of some anime, just to watch the series finale. 

In the end it hadn’t mattered if they watched it or not since Marinette didn’t understand it anyway. 

* * *

“Yo.” Black Cat jumped down onto a roof next to Robin.

“Fuck off.” He responded, not putting his heart into it. “Tell me what they’re saying.” He pointed to some people in a restaurant who looked hella sketchy. 

“What do you want me to do, fuck off or do your job for you?”

“Shut up and do it.”

“Fuck you.” She focused really hard, and started to hone her hearing on their conversation. She repeated everything back to it, but it didn’t make sense. 

“Thanks.” He nodded, and tried to take off. 

But she followed him. 

“What was that about?”

“It’s code.”

“For what?”

“A heist.”

“What heist are they planning?”

“Stealing a diamond.”

“Ooh, what kind of diamond?”

“What, are you turning into a mini Cat Woman?” He asked sarcastically. 

“Nah.”

“Special family heirloom, has codes embedded into it.” He told her. 

“Ah.” She jumped up onto the next roof he was up on. “Can I join you?”

“For what?”

“Busting them.” She shrugged.

“No.”

“Why?” She hung upside down from a different roof. 

“Tch, are all you Cat’s this annoying?” He crossed his arms at her, and realised his mistake as soon as he said it. “I’m sorry.”

“No you aren’t.” She climbed down, and jumped down into an alley. She de-transformed, but she didn’t move. He didn’t either. 

She made it so he couldn’t follow her, it would be suspicious if Robin were seen arguing with Black Cat and comforting a random civilian a moment later, and she knew that. 

But he didn’t move. 

She stood right below him. 

And he couldn’t do anything about it. 

“For what it’s worth, I regret how I made you feel. It was unintentional.” He yelled at seemingly nothing. 

“I know.” He heard below him. She was walking away. But maybe she at least didn’t hate him. 

  
  



	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY I SLEPT IN TILL ONE PM AND THEN I HAD TO GO TO WORK I'M SO SORRY I CAN'T BE A CHAPTER WIZARD TODAY

The people in the office at Gotham Academy rarely ever met Bruce Wayne. 

Usually when Damian was causing problems, or they needed him for something, they just met with either Alfred or an assistant of some sort. 

So when he dropped in unannounced, it may or may not have caused a slight panic. 

“I’m here to pick up Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Damian Wayne, and Jon Kent?” He asked them.

“Do you, uh, do you have a note? For the kids that aren’t yours, I mean?” The lady at the window stuttered. 

“I have one from Mr. Clark Kent, but Miss Marinette is an international student and I have an email from her parents saying I have permission to pick her up that can be used at any time, since I am her emergency contact.”

“Oh-ok. We will need a copy for verification, and, um, thank you.” She filed them, and then motioned for someone to call the kids to the front office. 

Marinette was closest, and she got there first. 

“Mr. Wayne?” She was confused. 

“Ah, yes, surprise change of plans, you have the bag you packed to go to the Kents?” He asked her. She nodded. “Good, well, we’re actually going to Kansas for thanksgiving.” He informed her. 

“Kansas?” She tilted her head at him. 

“Kansas?!” Jon appeared next to her, much more excited than the girl next to him. 

“Kansas?” Damian sighed like he really didn’t want to go to Kansas.

“Yes, Kansas.” Bruce tried not to laugh at the trio. 

“What’s in Kansas?” Marinette looked at the floor thoughtfully. 

“My grandparents!” Jon grinned at her. 

“Ah.” She nodded. “Wait, I thought they were coming to visit you?”

“There’s been an incident, Mrs. Kent fell down the stairs, and she can’t make the flight here.”

“Oh no.” Jon frowned at his best friend's father. “Is she ok?”

“She’ll be fine, but we’re going to her instead of her coming to us.” Jon looked relieved. Marinette just nodded. 

“Oh great, a road trip.” Damian did not sound at all excited.

* * *

It was not, in fact, a road trip. 

Bruce was not dumb enough to go somehwere with all of his kids in one car for an extended amount of time. 

That would be a disaster. 

No, they took a plane. 

Which was also a slight disaster. 

Ok, it was more than a slight disaster. 

It was a pretty big disaster. 

Someone had managed to tip off the news of the Wayne’s appearance at the airport, and plenty of journalists were waiting for them when they got there. 

Marinette, worried her old classmates would find the pictures, scrunched her hoodie strings so her face was barely visible. 

“You look ridiculous.” Damian teased her, handing her a pair of sunglasses. 

“Suck my ass.” She responded, taking the sunglasses.

“No.”

“Fuck you.”

“No.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

“I hate that that’s true.”

“True.”

“You little-”

“Come on, your old married habits are making us late.” Tim pushed her slightly, and she dropped the argument to glare at him. 

“I take it back.  _ You _ are the worst.”

“I agree with the woman, you  _ are _ the worst.” Damian nodded.

“You  _ both _ are making us late, let me remind you.” He repeated. They finally dropped it, and moved on. 

* * *

Damian had the window seat, and Jon was in the aisle. Marinete had the middle seat. 

She leaned her head on Damian’s shoulder, but then wiggled so her whole upper body was leaning on him, her legs curled up in Jon’s lap. He was using her knees like a book stand. 

She woke up facing the ceiling, her head bonking against the wall of the cabin slightly, her head in Damian’s lap. He didn’t notice she was awake, he was staring out the window, running his fingers through her hair. 

“Having fun?” She asked, and he jumped. Jon snickered. 

“Sorry.” He took his hand back.

“No, it was cute.” She mumbled, and closer her eyes again. 

“For the record, you fell.” He added. 

“What?”

“You fell. I didn’t move you.” He repeated. 

“Oh. I don’t care.” She mumbled, and then groaned as the seatbelt light came on. She sat up angrily. 

The house was smaller than she thought it would have been. 

“Why are there so many of us and so little house?” She mumbled. 

“I have no idea how, but we make it work.” Damian shrugged. “Plus, it’s only for the holiday. We’ll only be here like three days.”

“True.” She mumbled and followed him inside. 

The first day was… interesting. 

She met the old couple, and Martha told her she was way too thin. She didn’t know if she was offended or not. She decided with  _ not _ . 

* * *

Jon forgot that not everyone knew about Marinette’s being Black Cat. 

He also forgot that not everyone knew about her powers leaking into her civilian life. 

Unfortunately, they  _ both  _ forgot.

And he may or may not have spilt the beans fairly quickly. 

“So Jon, do you think your friend Marinette will want beans? Do they have beans in Paris?” Martha asked when Marinette was outside. 

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Marinette, do you have beans in Paris?” He asked, fairly obviously not loud enough for someone _ outside  _ to hear him. “She says there are on black beans in Paris.” He said casually. 

“What?” Dick frowned at him. “Did you just… what?”

“Dick, you know she’s the Black Cat.” Jon frowned at him. 

“I didn’t.” Bruce blurted out. “Black Cat? Really?  _ That _ tiny kid?”

“Hey quick question, does Marinette have superpowers?” Lois frowned at her son. 

“You didn’t know?” He frowned, and then it hit him. Of course they don’t know! They never told anyone!

“Jon I can’t fucking believe you.” Marinette laughed from the barn. 

“What?” Damian was confused. He had no idea what just went down.

“He literally just told everyone I’m black cat and I have powers with  _ no context _ .” She laughed. 

“J you absolute idiot.”

“Yeah, I know I’m an idiot, you don’t have to remind me.” He grumbled as he set down the potato he was peeling. 

“Who called you an idiot?” Jason frowned. 

“Damian called me an idiot.”

“For what?” he had missed the whole conversation. 

“Apparently, they conveniently forgot to tell us Marinette has powers.” Tim grumbled. 

“Meta?”

“Magic.”

* * *

“Come here.” She mumbled from her pile of blankets on the floor. 

“No fuck you.” Damian said as he stood up to get closer to her. “But why?”

“Because I want cuddles, you useless fucker.” She grumbled, and as soon as he sat down she crawled over to use him like a pillow. 

He made her feel safe, somehow. 

Even though he was much more normal than she was. 

* * *

The second day was much better. 

Even though it consisted of Jon wondering if Marinette could throw her shield hard enough to slice a tree in half, and they got it lodged into a boulder that took their combined super-strength to get it out of. 

But other than that, it was a fairly peaceful day. 

* * *

“Get up, bitches.” Jon yelled at them. “The parade is on!”

“What parade?” Marinette frowned, struggling to disentangle herself from her best friend. 

“ _ The  _ parade.” Was all he answered, and walked out again. 

“Fine.” 

The comically large number of people sat in front of the TV for a few hours, watching a parade, and then a dog show. 

Then they watched a football game as food was served. 

Maybe Marinette could grow to like this holiday. 

  
  



	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aye. Here I am.

“Awe shit!” Black Cat yelled as she spun her baton in a circle, creating a shield for them.

“Langage, Cat!” Robin chastised form behind her. 

“Fuck you!” She yelled back, and leapt into a battle stance as some of Riddler's goons surged forward. 

“Stop swearing, there could be children around!” He insisted. 

“What kind of children are running around at three in the fucking morning?!” She extended her baton, did a spinning flip that used her baton like a windmill propeller to whack seven goons on the head at the same time. 

“Recklessly abandoned ones!” Robin yelled, throwing a guy over the edge of the bridge that was being held up. 

“On a bridge?”

“Under it!” He tried. 

“Suck my ass!” She yelled, smacking one of the goons out of the air, using the baton like a baseball bat. 

“You are the worst!”

“I know!” She yelled back at him. 

Eventually, she managed to get rid of the bad guys on her end, thinking the fight was over, until she heard, 

“Cat!” She turned to see Robin cornered with a gun to his head. He was making him walk backwards towards the edge of the bridge. 

She ran at them, wondering why he wasn’t trying to fight the guy, and realised he had managed to drop both of his swords. 

The guy fired the gun, but she was faster. 

She knocked it out of the way a millisecond after he pulled the trigger but before the bullet left the chamber. Robin ducked, trying to dodge the fire, but ended up falling over the edge. 

Black Cat punched the guy in the face with her full force, knocking him out cold, and jumped to catch Robin. 

She grabbed him, and jammed her baton into a space in the underside of the structure. 

She shrunk the baton, reeling herself in like a fish.

“Hey.” She said as he clung to her. “I thought robins could fly.”

“Fuck you.” He responded. 

“Language, birdie.” She teased him, and flipped them both up to the top of the bridge again. “There could be kids around.”

* * *

She thought about what happened that night, about how worried she had been when she had seen a gun pointed at him. 

He didn’t have something that was indestructible. 

She didn’t have to worry about Jon, he was indestructible all by himself. 

If there ever was a situation where she felt she would have to worry about him, she had the turtle. 

If they ever came across a villain with a suspicious amount of Kryptonite, she could protect him with the turtle miraculous. 

But she doubted Damian would even take one if she ever tried to offer it to him. 

He would be offended she wanted to, probably. Ask her if she didn’t trust him as Robin or something. 

Dammnit, why did he have to have such a big ego?

  
  


* * *

“Marinette! It’s snowing!” Jon practically skipped into school.

“Oh?” She looked up at him. 

“We should go build a snowman!”

“We have school.” She reminded him. “We may be the notorious school-skipping trio, but that doesn’t mean we can drop everything to build a snowman.” He pouted.

“Are you sure?” He tried to give her puppy eyes. 

“Yeah, I’m sure. I have a test I have to take.” She went back to her index cards. 

“Can we make one after school, then?”

“Fine. Let’s see if it's still there after school.”

* * *

It  _ was _ still there after school. 

“Come on! We can build a snowman at D’s house!” He pulled her to his truck, and she climbed in. But then Damian opened the door, and she shuffled herself into the middle seat. 

“Awe, no Alfred today?”

“Nah, he’s working on something with Tim. I’m fine, though. Jon isn’t an  _ awful _ driver.”

“I don’t know…” Marinette pretended to be skeptical, and Jon rolled his eyes. 

“You two are the worst.” 

“We know.” They spoke simultaneously. 

* * *

“Let’s make a snow Batman.” Marinette grinned at them. 

“Fine. But only if we also make a snow Robin.” Damian insisted. 

“I’ll make a snow Black Cat punching snow Robin in the face.” Jon grinned as he started to pile the snow up.

Two hours later, they were cold as hell and soaking wet from the snow. 

“As miserable as I am, I have to admit we did good work.” Damian nodded at their statues of Robin and Black Cat fighting each other while Batman facepalmed in the background. 

“It  _ is _ glorious.” Marinette agreed. She snapped a picture. 

* * *

She went out as Black Cat a few days later, and regretted not meeting up with Robin sooner as Some Guy started to kick her ass. 

She hadn’t gotten used to all the different villains yet, all their various fighting styles, their quirks and habits. 

She got beat up pretty badly, but the other guy still came off just as bad. 

Black Cat sighed with relief when Robin came to get her. 

“Why are you saving Black Cat? You don’t even like her!” The guy yelled as he got dragged off by cops. 

“Ohana, bitch!” Robin screamed back at him as he dragged Black Cat’s tiny frame to a nearby alley. 

“Thanks.” She mumbled. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He grumbled. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey, don’t worry about me. I worry about you enough for all of us.” She grumbled, spitting out blood. He recoiled slightly. 

“Worry about  _ me? _ ” He seemed almost offended. _ Great, I knew it, he thinks I think he’s not good because he doesn’t have superpowers _ . “Why the hell do you worry about me?  _ You’re _ the one who hasn’t had proper training, and you worry about  _ me? _ ” That wasn’t the reaction she was prepared for. “I worry about you messing up and dying every damn day because you aren’t really trained in anything. Like,  _ anything _ .”

“What, do you think I’m not good enough to worry about you? I have indestructible shields, you don’t. You’re not…” She took a breath, and stared at him through the mask. “I can bend, but you can break.” He reached out, and put a hand on her neck. 

“You can break too, you know. Don’t get too cocky.” He started to walk away, but she stopped him. 

“Hey, Robin?”

“Yeah?” She stared at the ground. 

“When I was Ladybug, I… my partners died a lot.” She confessed. “But Ladybug had the power to bring everyone back, so no one… no one ever worried about it.” She had always been confused by that. Why her teammates would trust her so endlessly to the point it was concerning. “No one worried about dying because they put their faith in me so much they always trusted me to bring them back.”

“Cat-” he started, but she cut him off. 

“One day, two years into being Ladybug, about a year ago, the time travelling hero Bunnyx showed up.” Her voice was shaking, but she had to tell him. “She said… she said to me, six months in the future, I died. And Viperion wasn’t around to bring me back. She needed me to use my lucky charm to save myself. And I did. I saved myself. And it was all fine. But that… I just…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I lived the next six months knowing I was going to die and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing I  _ should _ do to stop it. I walked into that battle, and I knew I was… I got killed, Robin. And I had to put faith in myself to bring me back. And… god, it sucked.”

“I’m sorry.” He said quietly. 

“I’ve heard other stories. From the snake users. About… There was Aspik. I thought he would be a good snake holder, but he wasn’t. He told me, he said… He had tried for months to stop this one Akuma.  _ Months _ . And every time he re-set the timer, I died. I died over and over and over again and I had no idea.”

“I’m really really sorry.”

“I know I’m not unbreakable, Robin. But please… I’m a lot less breakable than you.” She extended her baton, and disappeared into the night. 

* * *

The next day at school, Damian kept staring at her. 

She felt guilty for dumping that on him, but she had to. 

Lunch was even more awkward. Every time she tried to say something, he just looked guilty. 

* * *

But by period six, she reached to grab a book out the air before it hit her in her head. 

“What’s this about?” She asked, not bothering to look at who had thrown it. 

“I need love and affection.” Damian demanded. 

“You can have affection if you stop looking like a sad-ass fuck.” She bargained. 

“Fine.” he snapped, and hugged her from behind. She was sitting at a stool in front of an easel. “Looks fabulous, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

“What is it?”

“It’s…” She trailed off, thinking about how to describe it. “It’s Paris from the point of view of… jumping off the tower.”  _ A hero's point of view _ is what she meant. 

“Interesting.”

“Thanks.”

“Interesting by itself isn't a compliment.”

“I could tell by your tone of voice you meant it as one.”

“Hm.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette is feeling unbalanced without her creation beside her.   
> So she gives the earrings to Robin.   
> Slight problem.   
> Robin doesn't have pierced ears.

Damian was sitting on the back of the couch reading in a book, his knees bonking into the heads of Dick and Jason, when he heard a thunk coming from the hallway. A  _ very odd  _ thunk. 

“Did anyone else hear-” Duke was cut off by Marinette appearing in the doorway.

“Been stabbed.” She said, and collapsed on the floor.

“What?” Dick blinked at the sudden appearance of the kid. Damian leaped off of the back of the couch, and she groaned. 

“What happened? Where have you been stabbed?” She rolled slightly, and exposed a large cut on her hip. 

“Been stabbed.” She repeated, and someone went to get a med kit. 

“Jesu-” Jason was cut off by Damian kicking him in the shins. 

“Just slap some duct tape on me, I’ll be good.” She mumbled. 

“Like hell you will be.” Damian grabbed a box from Dick. “Tell me what happened.”

“Walking back from the library to the dorm and some guy stabbed me.” Was all she had to say about that.

“That’s it?” Duke frowned at her.

“What, did you expect some grand story about me fighting him off?”

“After what happened in that seven eleven, yeah, kinda.” Damian pointed out.

“Well I was paying attention that day.” She snapped. “I wasn’t today.” 

“Sorry.” He mumbled, and got to work. She tried her hardest not to cry, but was only so successful. 

A few minutes after the initial shock passed, someone finally figured to ask, 

“Wait, if you were stabbed, how the hell did you get here?”

“Black Cat wasn’t stabbed, Marinette was. Duh.” She mumbled. 

“Wait, so you just… Did the suit like…”

“Didn’t stop the bleeding, everything still very much hurt, but it slowed it down a bit.”

“Huh.”

“I’m so… so ti…” She didn’t finish her sentence, she passed out. 

* * *

An hour later, she woke up on a kitchen table. 

“I told you you weren’t unbreakable.” Damian had crouched down so his head was close to hers. She scowled at him, but not for very long. 

“I know.” She said. He chewed on his lip, but didn’t say anything else. “Trust me, I know.”

* * *

She got a text from Luka that night. 

His transfer was unable to be completed, and he couldn’t figure out why.

She thought to ask Plagg if putting the earrings away made her unbalanced. 

He said it was most likely. 

She figured she should try sooner rather than later. 

  
  


* * *

“Hey you.” She jumped onto a lampost, and dangled herself down in front of him. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Oh?”

“Robin, partner of Batman, I have the Miraculous of the Ladybug,” She pulled them out of her pocket, and presented them to him. “Which grants the powers of creation.” She took another breath, and said. “It will help us both out. I’ll feel better if you have the yoyo, you’ll feel better having the power to save me if you have to.” She paused again. “Can I trust you?” 

He just gave her a perplexed look in response. 

“You seriously want me to have magic earrings?” He looked at her like she was crazy. 

“Please?”

“I don’t even know how to-”

“Just take them, you asshole.” She snapped. He took them. “You don’t even have to wear them today, just…. I want to know you have them. Just in case.”

“Just in case.” He repeated, and put them in his pocket. 

“I can tell you all about how being the bug works, if you want.”

“Yeah. Sure. Just...not today.” He shrugged. 

“Yeah. Not today.” She echoed, and then took off again. 

* * *

He went home and stared at himself in the mirror, wondering how the hell he could get pierced ears without anyone noticing. 

He set the box down on the bathroom sink, leaving it closed. 

He made faces at himself in the mirror, and then considered other places he could stick them. 

No, nope, no way, not happening.

He finally decided to open the box and take a look. 

A bright red ball of light erupted from the box, and he yelped. He had been expecting it, but still. You can only prepare yourself so much.

“Hello! I am Tikki, Kwami of creation.” She introduced herself. 

“Demon Spawn, you all good in there?” Jason yelled.

“I’m fine, Todd.” He got up from where he had fallen on the floor, and looked at the Kwami curiously. “Hello, Tikki. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Huh?” The Kwami wasn’t expecting this. 

“Marinette.” He shrugged. “She told me about you, yesterday, after giving them to me.”

“Marinette!” The little thing yelped in excitement. “Oh how I miss her so.”

“She’s worried.” He said, kicking something on the floor. “And I am too. That’s why I have you, now.”

“Worried?” She seemed concerned by this. 

“Yeah, she… She’s worried about me being Robin and not being able to protect myself, which is bullshit, but… I’m worried too. About other things. That’s the _ only  _ reason I took these.” He gave her a look. “I would not have taken them if the only concern was her own.”

“I can tell.” The red thing grumped. 

“My concern is with her. I’m worried she’s gonna make a mistake and get seriously injured.” He went back to looking at himself in the mirror, thinking about what he would look like with earrings. “She gave them to me as security so that if she gets taken out I can bring her back.”

“I think everyone is concerned about that with her.” He paused. 

“Who is… everyone?”

“Alix hasn’t told you the situation?”

“Who’s Alix?” The red kwami looked confused. 

“Where are we?”

“Gotham City, New Jersey.” The red thing got even more confused. 

“Not Paris?”

“No, Marinette hasn’t lived in Paris in months.”

“Oh wow. It’s been… so long.” She looked almost sad. “What’s she like, now? Is she better?”

“Getting there. I’m trying, anyway. So is my other friend, Jon. We’re giving her all the help we can.” This lightened her up. 

“Oh, good! She used to have so few friends… so many bad things happened…”

“Tikki, do you have to be bug-themed?” He broke off the conversation for a second. He could ask her about Marinette later, they had a while.

“Um… I’ve never not been bug-themed so far…” The Kwami frowned. “Why?”

“Well, being Robin is very important to me, so maybe… stick with the bird theme? Please?” He tried. 

“That can most likely be arranged.” She nodded. 

“Good.” She zipped into his pocket as he walked out. The earrings stayed in the box until he could figure some things out. 

* * *

He had a thought as he reached his bedroom.

“Tikki, what was Marinette like when you first met her?”

“She called me a bug rat.” The kwami scowled. He laughed. 

* * *

The next time Steph bugged him into going out with her, he easily agreed. 

Fortunately, it happened to be the next day. 

“Really?” She looked excited. 

“Sure. Why not.” He hopped in her bright purple mustang. 

“Awe!” She drove them to the mall. 

He tried to be casual about it, but one can only be so casual in his position. 

“How pissed do you think Father would be if I came home with pierced ears?” She gave him a confused and somewhat scared look. 

“Damian, are you feeling ok? When did you last eat something? Are you a clone? When’s my birthday?”

“I’m fine, seven o’clock, no, April 8th.” He deadpanned. 

“Huh.” She rubbed her chin, and decided he wasn’t a clone. “On a scale of one to ten, maybe an 8?” She offered. 

“Let’s do it.” She cackled, and brought him over to a counter. 

* * *

He hissed in pain as he took out the earrings the lady at the mall had given him, and put in the Miraculous.

“Oh the things we do for love.” Tikki teased him and he grimaced. 

“Tch, I am  _ not _ in love with her.” He rolled his eyes. He snarled at the pain he put the miraculous in his ears. They changed to small pitch black disks. 

“I didn’t say you were.” Tikki pointed out. “Loving someone and being _ in _ love are two different things.”

“Hm.”

“You love her enough that you’re scared of the aftereffects of her dying, and you're putting aside your dislike of magic to have comfort that you can protect her.” He gave the Kwami a sideways look. 

“You can tell I dislike magic?”

“I can tell a lot of things.”

“Hm.”

* * *

He was alone in the Batcave the next day, and he decided to give the miraculous whirl. 

“Tikki, spots on.” He said, and was suddenly enveloped in a red light. “Wait, hold up, wait a second, ahhh!” He panicked, and suddenly he was standing on the batcave floor again. 

His eyes were scrunched shut, and he wouldn’t open them. 

“Tikki?” He whispered. He got no answer. “Tikki, can you… can you hear me?” He said a little louder. He opened his eyes, and looked over at a large piece of glass to catch his reflection. 

He was wearing what was similar in shape to his old costume, but instead of red and yellow it was red and more red. 

He had long black gloves, with the sharp points on the forearm. He had tall black boots that went up to his knees. He had a black and white domino mask exactly like his normal one. He had a large black cape and hood, shaped like his yellow one. He had a big black circle logo where his old logo was, but this one had other little circles in a pattern around it. 

It… wasn’t bad. 

He noticed a black cord tied around his waist, and he reached behind himself. 

It was the yoyo, but it was hidden by the cape. 

“Oh hell yeah.” He said out loud. “Robin for the motherfucking  _ win _ .”

“What’s going on?” Dick came down the stairs, followed by Jason. 

“New suit, Demon Spawn?”

“A better suit than you will  _ ever _ have.” He grabbed his utility belt off of his old costume before running out of the cave. 

“I mean, I  _ doubt _ that.” Jason mumbled, offended.

“Was it just me, or did he have  _ earrings _ in?”

* * *

He felt like he had to do something nice for her back. 

Sure, the agreement was that the earrings were mutually beneficial if he had them, but still. 

He felt like he had to do something nice. 

He made a plan. 

  
  



	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just wrote chapter 33, and you all are going to DIE

“Since when did you have pierced ears?” Jon noted Damian strangely had new earrings in. 

“Since last weekend.”

“Why?” He went to take a closer look as they walked down the hall, and- “Oh. That’s why.” They were the same material as Marinette’s ring. 

“Yup.”

“She seriously-”

“Yeah.”

“And you actually-”

“Uh-huh.”

“No way.” 

“Yes way.” Marinete popped up behind them. “I didn’t actually think you’d put them on, you know. You seemed so adamant about only taking them for my purposes, I really didn’t think you would even put them in until there was an emergency and you had to.”

“Bold of you to assume I’m not wearing them for fashion.” He retorted. 

* * *

They didn’t expect it to be a problem. 

It was a Tuesday, so he had his period four class right after period two, or one, since science class was both periods one and two so he had them every day. 

And his period four class had a fairly ‘traditional’ aka misogynistic teacher, so naturally Damian got in trouble for wearing earrings to school. 

“Mister Wayne, I know you may think you can do whatever you want around here, but I’m going to have to ask you to take those hideous things out.” He snapped at him. 

“Excuse me?”

“Earrings are  _ women's  _ accessories, you are not allowed to wear them.” They got into a staring contest. 

“Ok, first of all, accessories are accessories, they aren’t gendered, and second, I got these done two days ago I can’t take them out. I'll get an infection. And third, this _ isn’t _ against the school policy so you can’t make me do anything.” He growled, and threw himself down in his chair. 

“Now listen here young man, I don’t know who’s been trying to tell you what’s ok and what’s not, but I assure you that wearing those silly things is-”

“They were a gift.” He seethed, stood up, and marched out of the room. 

He made his way down the hall, and threw open a classroom door. 

It was like she had sensed him coming. She already had her backpack open and was putting things in it.

“Let’s go.” He growled, and she was halfway out the door.

“Hold up a second there, where are you two going?”

“Mr. Caban is being sexist again, and I’m gonna take him out.” She looked like she wanted to argue, but had also been victim to his assholishness. 

“Permission to leave granted.”

“Thanks.” Marinette nodded, and he followed her out. He fought the urge to say  _ ‘we didn’t need it’. _

* * *

“You know one day, we’re gonna get in a lot of trouble for our terrible habit.” Marinette pointed out. 

“Oh shut up M.” 

“No.”

“Fine.”

They spent the rest of the day looking for ways to get that awful teacher in trouble. 

* * *

  
  


“So, just out of curiosity, what  _ exactly _ happens when Ladybug powers leak into civilian form? And how long does it take?” Robin, bright red, asked Black Cat. Her cringe did not go unnoticed. “I want to brag to Signal he’s no longer the only superhuman.” 

“Um. So. Uh. funny story.” She rubbed the back of her neck under the hood.

“Oh please don’t tell me-”

“It never happened to me.” She blurted out. He tilted his head at her. 

“It never…”

“I didn’t actually start to bond with any miraculous until I used the ring.” She confessed. “I have  _ no idea _ what happens when someone bonds with Tikki.” He took a second to process that. 

“Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“So there’s a chance that I won’t actually ever be like you?”

“A pretty big one, honestly, because I have no way of knowing who’s a good bond for any of them.” She shrugged. 

“Damnit.” He mumbled. “Now we can’t be the super awesome super trio.” He crossed his arms and pouted. She fought a laugh as she reached out to pat him on the head. 

“Sorry.” 

* * *

“Alright, spill.” Dick, not wearing the cowl, but still in his Batman suit was scowling at him. 

“Spill what?” Damian shrugged. 

“New suit. New earrings. Suddenly the suit disappeared and we have no idea where it is.” Jason was also looking pretty pissed. “What the hell happened?”

“Marinette gave me a present.” He shrugged, and tried to walk away. 

“If you don’t tell us, we’ll ask Alfred.”

“Do it. See what I care.”

* * *

Three hours later, he found Dick, Jason, Bruce, and Alfred in the kitchen while he was looking for poptarts. 

“How interesting, Master Damian.” Alfred gave him an amused look, and he knew he wasn’t in trouble. “I’ve never seen a Ladybug go by Robin before. That certainly must be a new one for the small bug.”

“She thought it was funny.” Damian nodded and left. 

“What the  _ hell _ does that mean?” Jason was just as lost as he had been three hours ago.

“You can tell them, I’m sure… the guardian won’t mind.”

“Why does everyone keep referring to Marinette as Guardian?” Duke walked in, equally confused. 

“Wait, what? Duke, you know what the hell a Guardian is? And it’s  _ Marinette _ ?”

“Who the hell else would it be, Todd?” Damian threw over his shoulder as he walked out with his juicebox. 

* * *

Cass congratulated him over text on no longer looking like a traffic light. 

It was funny, coming from her, one of the only family members to never have been a Robin. 

The new Robin and Black Cat appeared several more times before Christmas break. 

* * *

  
  


“You ready for break, M?!” Jon bounced into her dorm room. 

“Readier than I was six weeks ago.” She confirmed. 

She threw her suitcase into the backseat of his truck, and climbed in. 

“Let’s go.”

“Nice.”

* * *

When they got home, there was no one else around. 

They took this as an opportunity to talk about anything they wanted to without JL-Level repercussions. 

“So, D’s Ladybug, now, huh?” 

“Yup.” She nodded, and kicked her feet up onto the table. With socks on, obviously. 

“Ok, so, I’m a little confused.”

“About?”

“So like, you have cat-based powers, right?”

“Oh, right, that.” She realised where this was going. 

“And so you have, like,  _ obvious _ cat powers, but like, what the hell do Ladybug powers consist of?”

“Ladybug’s powers are of creation, the complimentary opposite of Black Cat’s, which are destruction. So he can call on a lucky charm, but he can also have the power to heal people. And purification, too.”

“But like, you have enhanced _smell_ and _hearing_ from the cat part, what will he get from the animal based part of it?” She bit her lip.

“Ok, so, I already kinda told him this, but, uh, I don’t know.” 

“You don’t… know?”

“I didn’t bond with the earrings like I did the ring. I have no idea what he gets out of this.”

“So he totally could just, like, start craving Aphids randomly?” Jon grinned. She snorted. 

“I fucking wish.” She shook her head. 

“Or just start hibernating out of nowhere?”

“Honestly, that’s  _ if  _ he bonds with the earrings and that’s a  _ big if  _ right there.”

“Oh, I forgot about that.” He frowned. “I hope he does, honestly. That would be so cool if all three of us were actually superheroes instead of two supers and a vigilante.”

“He said the same thing.”

“Really?”

“Well, he actually said ‘super awesome super trio’ but I think he meant the same thing.”

“No way.” Jon giggled. 

“Deadass.”

* * *

They blew up an air mattress on his bedroom floor, but abandoned sleeping for video games. 

A radio was playing in the background. 

It was mostly ignored, until the song ‘tequila’ by Dan+Shay came on and Jon dramatically started singing along. 

“But when I taste tequila! Baby, I still see ya!” He yelled, leaning on her so she fell over off the edge of the chair they were both sitting on. 

Correction, he was sitting in the chair. She was sitting on the arm of the chair. Or, actually, the floor, now.

“You are the worst.” She scowled, and climbed back onto the chair. 

The game level ended, and she climbed back onto the arm of the chair as the intro scene to the next level played. 

“Sky high in Colorado! You’re lips pressed against the bottle!” He pulled her into a hug, and she fought off a laugh, still pretending to be mad at him. 

“Jon, you are sixteen, and have never been to Colorado.” She shook her head, but couldn’t hide her clear amusement. 

“You don’t know that.” 

“Yes I do, you told me that last time this obnoxious song played in the car.”

“Oh.” 

  
  



	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Luka can't fill the space of Caring Older Brother, Conner steps in.

Black Cat jumped in through the kitchen window which was thankfully left open, and transformed laying on the floor. 

“Shit, what happened to you?” Conner had shown up some time between when she had left and come back. He had not been here when she had left. 

“No fucking clue.” She said into the cold tiles. 

“Don’t bleed on the marble, Lois will kill you. She loves kids, but she loves that marble too.” He pulled her to her feet, and grabbed a roll of paper towels. “I thought you were supposed to be magic?”

“I am magic.” She mumbled, taking a paper towel from him to stop her bleeding nose. “I may be advanced from normal human physical capabilities, but I’m not, you know… you.” She shrugged. “Magic isn’t perfect, it’s just magic.”

“Huh.” He finished cleaning the blood she had left on the floor, which she did feel guilty about, and then he handed her a warm wet rack to clean her bloody face with. “So, what else does it do?”

“The magic?”

“Yeah. You can hear things, as displayed over the _last_ holiday, but what else can you do? Jon conveniently forgets to tell us a lot, and apparently Damian doesn’t tell his family a lot either. I tried asking Dick.”

“As a, you know, normal person out of the suit I can hear things as well as smell things. Not, like, as in far-away things I can smell things, but like as in I can smell things like minute pheromones same as cats can. I can tell the difference between different people, and sometimes I can smell people’s emotions.”

“Seriously?”

“Not all the time, though. Only sometimes.”

“That’s still pretty cool.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, I think.”

“Oh. I also have better agility outside of the suit, but when I’m actually transformed, I have _insane_ agility. Like, seriously crazy agility.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I’ve leapt a personal record of 800 feet off of the top of the eiffel tower.”

“Oh holy shit.”

“From standing flat-footed, I can jump around five stories on the air, and even higher when I can use my baton.”

“Interesting.” He nodded as she found a mirror to make sure she got the last of the blood off of her face. 

“The baton is magic too, so I can basically extend it for infinity, and when I spin it really fast it acts like a shield. It’s indestructible, too, despite being made purely of light.”

“That’s good, having a shield. Shields are fun. And useful.” It was like he could tell how lonely she was, and that she needed to talk about literally anything.

“Yeah. It’s pretty cool. It acts like a magic gadget too, it can do basically anything I need it to.”

“Can it pick locks?”

“Yeah, I pick locks by using it like a hammer and knocking locks out of doors.” She snorted. 

“Fair.” He shrugged. 

“But that’s my baton and my physical abilities. My magic ability is called the cataclysm, I can use it to turn literally anything into dust.” 

“Really?”

“Got anything I can do a sample on?” She joked. 

“An old broken umbrella?”

“Nah, it would be a mess to clean up without Ladybug.”

“Ladybug?”

“My old power set. Instead of being able to destroy anything, I could create anything. It was called a lucky charm, and it would help to defeat an akuma.”

“Akuma.” She didn’t have time for this again. 

“Magic evil demons created from concentrated negative emotions. It’s kinda hard to explain.”

“Huh. So you used to be someone else?” 

“Yeah.” She set the rag down and opened a med box he had produced out of nowhere for some bandaids. She had a few small cuts from falling on glass. Most people would not have survived being thrown through that window. But she came out with only three small scratches. But they still stung like hell. “I was Ladybug, but I wasn’t a perfect match to the earrings, so instead of the full set of magic abilities, I mostly just had super strength, freaky-awesome agility, and the basic lucky charm abilities. I didn’t have any special powers, so I have no idea what someone who does match with the Ladybug can do.”

“Awe, that’s too bad.”

“Well, if I matched with the Ladybug, I wouldn’t match with the cat, so, I kinda don’t regret it.” She shrugged, and he pulled an ice pack out of the freezer. 

“Do you like being the cat better?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “It was my ex-partners powers, and he was kind of an asshole, so I wasn’t really all that on-board with using the powers of someone that hurt me, but I’ve mostly gotten over it. Being better at being the cat than him was an added bonus. Like a _ha, suck it, I’m a cooler cat than you’ll ever be, asshole_ moment.”

“Fun.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Quick question, do you know where I can find a tape measure?”

“Sure.” He opened a drawer and tossed her a tape measure. “Hey, quick question, not that I mind, but why are you even here? Don’t the exchange kids get to go home for the holidays?” She got a dark look on her face, and he regretted asking. 

“My parents think that sending me away will fix my depression, as if being away from a problem for an extended time will make it go away, and they don’t want me coming home becaus they think it’ll make it worse.” He had no idea what to say to that.

* * *

That night, Superman and Batman met on a roof at the outskirts of the city. 

“Good news, Bats.” Superman nodded at him. “The little Cat likes to talk much more than our secretive brothers do.”

“Fabulous.” Batman nodded. That was his first giveaway he was the first Robin and not the first Batman, the original Batman never said fabulous. But Nightwing did. “Agent A isn’t spilling either. What do you got?”

* * *

  
  


She was nervous about what Christmas would be like. 

She kept forgetting she wasn’t _actually_ a part of this family, and that she was really intruding. 

She was nervous about _how_ intruding she actually was. 

That was quickly diminished four days before Christmas when she saw a few boxes under their tree, and two with her own name on them. 

It almost made her cry. 

But not quite.

She cried when she actually found five instead of just two. 

Someone had told them she liked sketching, and his parents had gotten her a sketchbook and some nice pencils. It meant a lot to her. 

Jon had gotten her his own present from himself. A small colored pencil set that had custom names on them. Red was _Robin, that miserable shit_ , orange was _suck my ass_ , yellow was _shut the fuck up_ , green was _Because I’m Batman, bitch_ , the same response she always gave when they bugged her about her ‘secret business’. Blue was _I hate superheroes_ , indigo was _fuck you_ , and violet was _Whether you like it or not_. She had a feeling violet was going to make its way into a lot more of her work. 

She had a present from Damian that she had no idea how it wound up in their house, but it was there, and it was a rolling cutter, for fabric. It came with a note that had her label sketched onto it. _Found you_ , it said, with an evil smiley face. She smiled at the paper, and popped open her phone case to stick the note in it. She would have to get a clear phone case later. 

Her last one was a box with the Nintendo label on it. 

She used her fingernails to cut the tape, and pulled out a Nintendo controller, compatible with her switch. 

The left side was decorated like Superman’s logo, and the left was Batmans. She snorted, and realised there was a card that came with it. 

_‘Welcome to the family, whichever side you choose.’_ It said, and was signed with their logos at the bottom. This smiley face was a little less evil than Damian’s was. 

It was her new favorite controller. 

* * *

At the Wayne Manor, there was a bet starting to take place. Stephanie started the whole thing on accident, really.

“Twenty bucks says Clark pulls a Bruce and adopts his own Blue-Haired kid.” She had meant it as a joke. She didn’t expect them to take it seriously. 

“No way. Bruce is not letting him get to her first.” Jason shook his head. “I say he’s already in the process of trying to get her.”

“Ok, but like, they got her christmas presents. She’s in that family for good, now.” Tim shook his head. 

“Alright, let the betting begin. Who do you think will get her first, Clark and Lois, or Bruce and Selina?”

“Clark and Lois.” Stephanie added. 

“Are you kidding? She’s a _cat,_ Stepahnie.” Jason pointed out. “Selina has practically mentally adopted her already. My bets on Bruce and Selina.”

“I’m on team Clark and Lois.” Babs agreed with Steph.

“Even Alfred likes her, and he barely tolerates half of you all. Bruce and Selina.” Duke added. 

“I will like to place myself on the side of Master Bruce purley out of wishful thinking.” Alfred said from the doorway, confirming Duke’s statement.

“Tch,” Damian shook his head. “She’s got _super_ powers, Jon would hate his father if he let her get away.”

“That is true.” Tim wrote him on the side of Clark and Lois. 

“Five bucks says Conner beats them both to it.” Dick spoke up from the corner of the room. They all gave him a funny look. 

“You got inside info, Dick?” Tim asked him, suspicious.

“No, but he does.” he said before walking out to go get himself snacks. 

“What the hell does that mean?” Even Barbara was confused. 

“I don’t know. Cass, you in?” Tim yelled. She pointed to Jason, and Tim put her on team Bruce and Selina. 

“What about _you_ , Tim?” 

“I’m the mediator, I don’t _have_ a side.”

  
  



	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Updating because I can't write. I'm trying to write but it's 12:17 am and I can't form coherent words. I have ideas, but I'm so tired I can't make them make sense.

A few days after Christmas, Black Cat ran into Superman. 

The Second Generation Superman. 

“Hey, Tiny Cat.” He nodded at her, as she punched a guy in the face. “What brings you to this fight?” They were on the top floor of an abandoned building. 

“Public Transportation.” She responded, very seriously, as she jabbed a man in the chest with her baton. 

She looked around the room, wondering what had even started the fight in the first place. There were things and stuff all around the place, but they didn’t look attached to any one group. It was odd. Almost as if it were a set-up.

The fight was odd, too, and she had a bad feeling the whole time. The people were fighting strangely, and seemed especially angry with her. As if they hadn’t counted on her being there… 

She had a thought, and started mimicking their weird fighting styles, trying to push them in odd directions. Her suspicions were confirmed. 

They weren’t fighting to hurt them, they were fighting as if they were moving them around the room. Placing them like pawns on a chessboard. 

She backed off, putting more of her energy into listening. 

But she didn’t know where to focus it, and she got frustrated. 

So she worked backwards. 

She found only three windows. 

She ditched the baton for hand-to-hand combat, making her way to the closest window. All the visible roofs from that window were empty. 

She focused her hearing on them, and she couldn’t hear anything either. 

She did the same thing at a different window. 

That time, she found something. 

A sniper. 

They had attracted Superman to take him out with a Kryptonite laced bullet. 

“Hey! Superman! Get out of here!” She yelled at him. 

“What?” He kicked someone out a window. 

“Trust me! I got this! Go get Robin! Please!” She yelled, and he confusedly went to go find Damian.

The people, four of them, now, as opposed to the previous seven, suddenly changed their demeanor the second he was gone. 

Instead of fighting as if they were moving sheep, they became lethal. 

She had to dodge bullets, knives, and other various weapons they had refrained from using before. 

“Seriously?” She said as someone attacked her with a sword. “You won’t hit Superman with it, yeah, because he would just break your precious object on impact, I get it, but really? Me?” She dodged him as she ran around the room, having fun with it. “You know what, maybe I’ll break your sword, too. You never know.” She stopped, and stood still, her hands out sideways, posing like D’Argencourt had when he had been akumatized. When Chat Noir had fallen for it. 

She took the advantage of having a magically gloved hand, and grabbed the blade with her palm. She yanked it out of their hand, and snapped it over her knee. 

They produced a second one. 

“You really don’t learn your lesson, do you?” She said, whispered her cantation for a cataclysm, and turned his sword to dust. 

“Heard you were looking for me?” Robin popped into the window. 

“Sniper. Across the street. He’s got kryptonite-laced bullets. I need to destroy them.” She raised her voice slightly, now fighting the last guy hand-to-hand. She punched him in the face, and he was down and out cold. 

“And that required me why?”

“It got Kon out of here.” She shrugged, and he nodded. “Also I need help.”

“Huh.” He stopped from where he had been leaning in the window, and reached a hand out to her.

He had been practicing using the yoyoy. 

“Up there.” She pointed. 

“Ready to go?” She wrapped an arm around his waist. 

“Let’s roll.”

“Swing, actually.” He smirked, and they took off. 

* * *

She was eating a re-heated slice of pizza from the Domino’s they had ordered the night before. 

She bit into a slice, and frowned as she chewed.

_ There’s something off about the pizza dough on this slice… _

She lifted it up, and looked at the underside. She saw a bit of paper stuck to the bottom of it from the box it had come in. 

There was a bite mark on the edge of the paper-y part. 

She groaned, pulled out her phone, and tweeted for the second time in three months. 

**@SuperSauce** :

_ ‘Just ate paper off the bottom of a pizza slice. I am Not Happy.’ _

She had managed to get verified, somehow, after Dick Grayson and Jagged Stone started following her, which resulted in many other celebrities following her as well. 

“Ha. Very funny.” Damian deadpanned from the chair.

“Thanks.”

“But did you actually?” He raised an eyebrow at her. She lifted her pizza slice, to show where she was peeling paper off the bottom, and he snorted at her. 

“Dumbass.”

“I know.”

It was silent for a few more moments, before Jon finally had a thought. 

“You want to come watch the fireworks with us?” Jon asked.

“Fireworks?”

“Tomorrow? It’s New Years?” 

“Won’t it be cold?” She frowned at him.

“Not if you wear a jacket.” Damian deadpanned. 

“Huh.” She didn’t answer for a few minutes. “Yeah, I guess I’ll go.” She said, quietly. 

“Fun.”

* * *

“Come on, we have to go get D.” Jon yelled up the stairs at her from the kitchen. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” She yelled, bundling herself all up, and came down the stairs. Jon tried not to laugh at her. 

“You seriously-”

“Shut the fuck up.” 

They found him already standing at the end of the Manor driveway.

“You look miserable.” Marinette nodded at him.

“I do believe this makes it your turn to pick the music.” Damian handed her the auxiliary cord as he hopped in the passenger seat. She scooted to the center seat, even though there was a perfectly good backseat, and then took it. 

She played Pas Beau by Vitaa and Slimnae. 

“Why would you play such a sad song, Marinette?” Damian asked. 

“Because it’s how I fucking feel.” She grumbled. “If you don’t like how I feel, play a different song.”

“No, it’s fine.” He turned back to the window. “Play whatever you want.”

The song ended, and she played Coffee by Luhan and Kris Wu next. 

“I guess this is slightly less miserable.” The line ‘no one cares who I am’ played just after he said that, and he added, “But only slightly.” 

* * *

Jon backed into a parking spot on a wharf, and they climbed out. 

He had packed a tote box full of blankets, and spread a few of them down in the truck bed before they climbed on top of them and put the rest of them on themselves, waiting for the fireworks to begin. 

Marinette had a hat on under her hood, a sweatshirt under her jacket, and fleece-lined leggings under very warm sweatpants. 

It was the end of December in Gotham, after all. 

Someone a few parking spaces down had a radio playing, to some popular radio station. She didn’t mind it, the songs weren’t horrible. 

“Oh my god!” A few minutes later, the song changed, and Jon threw a blanket off of himself. 

“What?” He jumped out of the back of the truck. 

“Dance with me, M!” He insisted. 

“No.” She snorted at him. “I will do  _ no _ such thing.”

“Fine. Damian will dance with me, then, won’t you, D?”

“No way in hell.” 

“Awe.” He whined. “Marinette, please?” She huffed,

“Fine. I guess I’ll dance with you.” 

“Oh yay!” She jumped out of the back of the truck, and he took one of her hands to spin her around. She laughed, and leaned on him. He put an arm around her, and started to dramatically move around in circles, dragging her with him. 

“Are you sure this counts as dancing, J?” She teased him. “Because you have  _ no  _ sense of pattern.”

“Yeah, M, I’m sure.” He tried to twirl her again. She tripped this time. 

He caught her, and she laughed again. 

“Damian, are you filming this? I swear to god-” She gave him a pointed look.

“This is payback for filming me licking a felt blanket.” He shot back, and she groaned. 

“What, are you embarrassed of me, M?” Jon teased her, and she tripped. Again. 

“You are literally the worst.” The song ended, and they jumped back in the truck. 

The fireworks started not too long after that. 

“Ooh, this is pretty.” She mumbled, snuggled in between her two tall friends. 

“Not as pretty as me.” Damian countered. 

“True.” She nodded, and he snorted. 

“I didn’t think you would agree with me…” He mumbled. “Do you think anyone will notice if I called on Tikki right now?”

“Probably.”

“Damn. I bet being Magical Robin is much warmer than this.”

“Oh, it is. I've used that suit in outer space before, I survived just fine. Very warm.”

“I’m sorry, you what?”

“Story time for later.”

* * *

  
  


She watched the fireworks in amazement, looking at all the pretty colors, when soon enough, some people aerated loudly counting down backwards. 

“Hey. I’m gonna take a cute video.” Jon pulled out his phone, and handed it to her to hold on to. She happily obliged, but she saw Damian making a funny face in the background. He was smirking and looking at her like he had an evil plan in mind. 

“You look suspicious.” She teased him, but as they got to three, they both got very close, and as everyone yelled ‘one’, they both leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek at the same time. She shrieked, then laughed, and Damian reached up to take a picture without looking at it.

Her face felt much warmer than it had a few minutes ago.

“Fuck you two.” She giggled, and ended the video. But she sent the video and picture to herself before handing the phone back to Jon. 

“Yeah, we’re the worst, aren’t we?”

  
  



	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'M GONNA SINK ALL YOUR SHIPS BITCHZ

Marinette was exhausted on their first day back at school. 

“Marinette, we’re doing an experiment. You have to be a  _ little bit _ helpful.” Jon teased as she laid down on the table. 

“No.” Kids were moving all through the room as they were grabbing gear and supplies for the lab. 

Marinette was doing nothing and being unhelpful. 

“Fine. Put this beaker away at least, we don’t need it.” Jon handed her a beaker. 

She inspected it a second, looked over at the rack where the rest of them were stored. 

_ Is potentially exposing my identity worth not moving? _ She mused.

_ Yes. _

She threw the beaker at the wall, and it landed on the rack. Jon sighed. 

“Marinette, how did you  _ do _ that?” Katie frowned over at her. “That was amazing.”

“I’m Batman.” She mumbled, and promptly started snoring.

* * *

The second day of school, Marinette found Damian giving her an evil smile.

Like he knew something she didn’t. 

And was something she wanted to know. 

“Happy birthday.” Damian handed her a key, and she frowned at it.

“It’s not my birthday.” She gave him a funny look. 

“Happy late Christmas, then.” He shrugged. She rolled her eyes, and took it. 

“So? What does it go to?”

“Room 223.” He jammed his hands into his pockets. She gave him a confused look.

“Huh? You got me a key to the school? How the hell did you do that?”  _ WHY the hell did he do that? _

“I told the school board how special you are and harassed them into letting you have that key.” He shrugged, and started to walk away. “Also, I may or may not have gotten Bella to let me into your room to steal a few things.” Her blood ran cold, before realising there was no way he could know about the miracle box. He wouldn't even be able to find it. 

_ He wouldn’t even WANT to take it, dumbass, we’re friends. He wouldn’t do that.  _

“What the hell did you steal from me?” She shrieked. 

“Go find out.” He called over his shoulder as he disappeared. 

She looked around, and took off in the necessary direction. 

* * *

She tried the door. 

It was locked. 

She looked at the key for a few seconds, and tried it.

It opened. 

Inside, she found her sewing machine and all of her supplies.

And a lot more. 

“Oh holy shit.” She whispered, and looked around. 

It was like her own little personal studio. 

She loved her friends. 

She took off the chain the ring was on, and slid the key on next to it. 

Then she looked around her new sewing room. 

  
  


* * *

A week and a half after they came back to classes, a senior boy walked up to their table during lunch. 

“Hey, you’re Marinette, right?” He asked. She just gave him a blank stare in return. “I was wondering if you had a date to the prom, or if you were looking into going.” She blinked, and looked away from him. 

“Damian, what the hell is a  _ prom _ ?” She asked. 

“I’ll show you what a prom is, if-” She cut him off. 

“I didn’t ask you, Chad, I asked Damian.” He recoiled slightly. 

“My name is James.” He tried.

“Ok, Mason, I’m talking to someone else right now, thanks.”

“It’s a silly dance thing, some people take it very seriously, but I think it’s dumb as hell.” Damian explained to her. 

“Huh. So you aren’t interested in going at all?”

“Nope.”

“I’ll take you to the prom if he doesn’t want to go, M.” Jon attempted to say with a straight face. He had to take a sip from his water bottle to hide a snicker. 

“Awe, really? I’d appreciate that, J. Thanks.” She nodded at her best friend seriously, and he collected himself enough to nod back at her, equally serious. 

“No problem.” A group of people who had watched the whole citation started to laugh at the senior. 

“Straight savage.” One girl yelled, and he scowled as he walked away. 

“I’m just kidding.” Damian whispered when the crowd dispersed. “I would actually go if you  _ really _ wanted me to.”

“I’m sure we could come up with a hundred better things to do than that.” 

“Awe, you don’t want to go on a date with me?” Jon pouted dramatically, and she threw a crumpled napkin at him. 

“I’ll go on a date with you when you stop having  _ shit _ taste in music.” He sighed, and said, 

“I guess some people are never meant to be.” She laughed at him. 

  
  



	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning this shit gets a little TOO angsty.

She missed Alix. 

It was coming up on one year since she had kicked Hawk Bitch’s ass, and strangely, the biggest emotion she was feeling was that she missed Alix. 

It wasn’t anger about her partner. 

It wasn’t sadness for when she had felt like she had lost so many years of her life.

She just missed Alix. 

She took off the turtle miraculous, threw on a pair of glasses, and jumped through a hole in the bathroom. 

“Hey.” She said, when she came face to face with her friend for the first time in months.

“Hey.” Alix frowned at her, and she de-transformed. “What’s wrong? Do you need Bunnyx?”

“Not...not yet.” She shrugged, but handed her the miraculous anyway. “But I feel comfortable with you holding onto it for now.”

“Any reason?”

“Looked at a calendar recently?” 

“Ah.” She took the miraculous from Marinette, and flipped it around in her hands a few times before putting it in her pocket. “Can’t wait to whack people around with the umbrella some time.”

“Heh, yeah.” Marinette chuckled at the idea of Alix whacking people with umbrellas. “You’re gonna be so good at whacking people with that thing.” 

“Want to play UMS with me?” Alix offered, not really sure what else to say. 

“Yeah.” She answered. “That would be fun.”

* * *

Marinette checked the timer she had set for herself and when she would have to go back.

“I have twenty minutes left, want to… give it a test run?”

“Uh, I have a test tomorrow.” Aix set her game controller down guiltily. “But I missed getting my ass kicked by you.” She stood up for a hug.

“I missed you too.” Marinette hugged her back, and headed out. 

* * *

But instead of going home, she went to the eiffel tower. 

And moped. 

She moped about all of her sad miserable feelings, and started to cry.

Why did all of this shit have to happen?

She doubted many adults went through as much heartbreak as she did. 

But lso most adults weren’t super heroes. 

Or vigilante’s. 

Maybe she could put Mr. Wayne high up on her list of people who had led more miserable lives than her, but certainly not Mr. Kent. 

She thought about dropping into the bakery as Valkyrie, but didn’t. 

She thought about Adrien, and how just about one year ago last weekend she would have broken up with him. 

This week she would have screamed and cried and trashed her whole bedroom. 

One year ago this weekend her Aunt Penny would suggest getting her frustrations out via painting. 

Her first painting was of a monster. 

Not an Akuma, a monster. 

An ancient greek wonster, who had a story. 

Then she would feel bad. 

She would look at the painting, the very nicely done painting of a demonic creature, in a power stance with smoke curling around his feet, and moonlight behind him, and feel guilty. 

Like she was an awful person for wanting to express herself through something so horrendous. 

She felt guilty that she felt miserable inside and that she let it out.

So she would paint a flower. 

A big orange flower with intricate shading. 

And she would hate that too.

Because she felt awful that she was trying to paint something she was not.

So then she painted a door.

She painted a big wooden door, on a gray wall, with black tile floors leading up to it. 

She liked that one. 

She was hit with a sudden urge to take the ring and chuck it in the Seine. 

Fuck the miraculous. 

Fuck being someone else for the sake of other people. 

Fuck being sad. 

Fuck throwing away her civillian life for the sake of being someone other people needed her to be. 

Fuck being forced to live out the consequences of other people’s actions. 

Fuck this. 

Fuck all of this. 

She just wanted to go to school and give Alya a hug and talk to Nino about his new project and tease Chloé about her new jacket and play video games with Max and dare Kim to climb the basketball hoop and race Alix down the hallway and photograph Juleka for her website and hang out with her friends. 

But she couldn’t do that. 

She couldn’t go to school, she went somewhere else now. 

She couldn’t hug Alya, she hated her. 

She couldn’t tease Chloé, Lila would call her a bully. 

She couldn’t race Alix, she couldn’t dare Kim, she couldn’t play with Max. 

Because she was gone. 

Her parents thought sending her away would make things better. 

Sure, they weren’t worse, but still. 

She wanted to heal with her friends around. 

She wanted to heal with people she knew. 

But  _ they _ didn’t want that for  _ her _ . 

Her friends  _ or _ her parents. 

Nobody wanted her to be happy. 

So why should she be?

Why should she be happy if no one wanted her to be?

Her being happy was making the people she liked sad. 

So she shouldn’t be happy. 

If she were miserable, and people could see her miserable, maye they would like her again. 

But then her phone lit up, and she remembered. 

_ M, Mum’s making apple pie, and I’m bringing some to Kon’s place, you want to come to? _

Yeah. Yeah, she could do with some apple pie right now. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Her parents are right.   
> Everything about Paris is completely wrong for her.  
> She just refuses to believe it.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry in advance. 
> 
> Also. 
> 
> Marinate makes her first of many trips to Conner's place.

“Hey, what’s up?” Jon frowned at her as Black Cat climbed in through the twentieth story window to the stairwell that went to Conner’s apartment building. 

“I’m miserable.”

“Well, good thing I have pie, then.”

“Yeah. Very good thing.” She nodded, not letting him know exactly how good it  _ really _ had been. 

If he hadn’t texted her, she might have done something stupid. 

“Hey, come on in.” Dick was the one who answered the door. “Bring the pie.”

“What, are you going to kick us out right after I set the pie down?” Jon said sarcastically. 

“Just set the fucking pie down, and no one gets hurt.” Dick said in his best Batman voice, making Jon giggle. It ever-so-slightly raised Marinette’s awful mood. 

“What are you thinking about, Tiny Cat?” Conner grabbed a knife to cut the pie with. 

“Had business in Paris. Got upset. Came home for pie.” She mumbled, and climbed up on a breakfast bar stool, patiently waiting for her slice. 

“Paris? What business did you have in Paris?” Jon frowned at her. 

“Guardian business.” She got quieter. 

“What’s that mean?” Conner was slightly confused. 

“Another time.” She shook her head, and stole the plate Dick had gotten for himself. 

“Hey.” He complained. 

“Suck it.” She took his fork, too, and munched away on the pie. “Plagg, you like pie?”

“No.” A voice grumped from her pocket. 

“Sucks to be you, then.” She went back to her pie. 

“So, you obviously didn’t go there by plane, so how did you get there?” Conner pointed out. Dick was still scowling at her as he got himself another slice. 

“You know how I was Emerald Shell a little while back? By using a different miraculous?”

“Yeah?”

“I used yet another one as Valkyrie that had the power to open portals. I portaled there and back.”

“Seriously?” He raised an eyebrow at her. She nodded. “How many do you have?” She tried to count them on her fingers. 

“Maybe around… 18? I think?”

“Seriously?” Dick stopped glaring out of pure confusion. 

“Uh-huh.” 

“And why don't you… why don’t you use all of them?” He asked as if it were the most obvious decision. 

“The more you use, the bigger the toll it takes on your body.” She shrugged. “I have carried them all before, for an extremely crazy plan, and it… god, my arms were sore for a  _ week _ , just for  _ holding _ them. I didn’t even  _ use _ more than three.” She scrunched her nose at the memory. Multi-Mouse. What a horrible day. Cute look, though. 

“Deadass?”

“Completely.” She nodded, mouth full of food. 

“Doesn’t explain to me why you looked miserable two minutes ago.” Jon pointed out. She chewed slower before gulping it down. 

“I wanted to go see my parents. But I couldn’t. They were… they were right there, but I couldn’t go say hi. They… they don’t want to see me.” She started to munch on her crust. “Why don’t they want to see me?” She didn’t mean to say it out loud. But she did. 

“Uh.” They had no idea what to say at first. 

“I’m sure your parents love you Marinette. They just wanted to see you… they wanted to space you out from your problems.” Jon tried. Kon was tapping the table with his fork, he and Dick…  _ weren’t _ the best examples of kids with loving parents. 

“Look, kid, they probably still have your best interest at heart, just because they can’t be here while you’re here doesn’t mean they love you any less.” Dick attempted. She took a shaky breath. 

“Thanks.” She mumbled, clearly not all that into it. 

Jon scooted his stool back, and pulled her into his lap. She didn’t object as he hugged her, and put his head on her shoulder. 

“No spiraling on me, ok?” He said, and she sighed in response. 

“Ok.” She picked up her fork again, and started to eat the rest of Jon’s slice. 

“Hey now wait a second-”

“Nope. Can’t fight me. You’re too busy hugging me. Can’t fight me for pie.” He growled in response, 

“I hate it when you're right.” 

“I know. I’m the worst.”

“No, I think I am.”

“True. We’re both fairly awful.” 

“Aren’t we?”

* * *

She traded glasses for bracelet, and sat down on her bed, face-first. 

“Bad day?” Bella asked, exciting the bathroom.

“You have no idea.” Marinette grumbled. 

The next morning, when she called Kagami, she didn’t mention Paris. 

* * *

“What the hell is that?” Marinette frowned as she watched Robin mess with something in his belt before they left the cave. 

“Batarang. I don’t really use them as often as I should, though. I just had to sharpen it, just in case.

“Batarang? Seriously?”

“What?”

“Do you seriously put the word Bat in front of everything of yours?” She teased him. “Batmobile was one thing, Bat-Cow was a little weird yet acceptable, but seriously? Batarang?”

“I don’t put it in front of  _ everything _ .” Damian scoffed. “If I did that, I’d call you Bat-Marinette.” He rolled his eyes. She snorted. 

“You-” She cut herself off, trying not to laugh.

“Yeah, go on, laugh. It’s funny.” He shrugged. She giggled. 

Robin and Black Cat headed out of the cave. It was about to be a very strange night.

* * *

Talia knew about the miraculous. 

She had been hunting them for ages, looking for a way to steal them. 

But she had never told her son about them. 

That was shaping up to be a _ terrible  _ decision when she saw him using a yoyo to dangle himself upside-down sticking his tongue out at a girl in a cat hoodie, who was giggling at him. 

He didn’t have to not be wearing a mask for her to see that her son clearly loved her. 

Maybe not romantically, but he did love her very much. 

This was terrible. 

How on earth could she get him to betray someone he loved when he had been spending _ so much _ time around that miserable Grayson?

She snarled, and started to make a call. 

She was going to get that jewelry. 

No matter the cost. 

_ Again. _

* * *

“Dammit, not again.” Robin grumbled as he dropped a potato chip on the ground. Black Cat laughed at him. 

They found themselves checking out an abandoned warehouse that “Seems suspicious.” Black Cat had argued. 

“Fine.” He had sighed, and they went in. 

They were surrounded in seconds. 

“Evening, boys!” Black Cat said cheerfully as she split her baton in half. “Or ladies. Or people. I don’t judge.” She got out one last snarky comment before a fight broke out. 

She twisted herself this way and that, at first playing defense as she gauged their abilities, and then on the offensive side when she figured she had them all figured out. 

After a few minutes, when they were back-to-back again, she yelled, 

“Duck!” Robin went forward onto his knees, and she bent backwards on top of him. 

As predicted, they all slashed the same way at the same time, and she cataclysm’ed every sword in one big swoop of her hand. 

Balc Cat held her breath as the dust flew everywhere. 

She could just imagine herself in a slow-motion cleaning supplies commercial with dramatic violins playing in the background as the camera moved in a close-up circle around the fight, highlighting all the mess the dust was about to make. 

The fantasy quickly faded as the dust took no time to settle, and they had nine extremely confused opponents. 

They all held their breath for a half a second before scattering. 

“Fools.” The tenth said from the corner. “All of them fools.” He drew his own sword, and took a stance. 

“The truest fool of them all is the one who belittles the power of friendship.” Black Cat could not possibly have sounded more sarcastic in that moment. 

He struck, and she went for it. 

She ducked around his blade, kicked her leg up high, but counted on his moving his head out of the way. 

She cocked her knee around his sword arm, and did a sideways flip, sticking him in the head, knocking the sword out of his hand, crumpling him to his knees, and landing on her feet. 

But he was quick. 

He wouldn’t go down and stay down. 

Robin intervened. Shit got real. 

* * *

After about five minutes of fighting later, (the timer had slowed significantly in the last year,) she tried to do the thing where she grabbed the sword and snapped it in half. 

She could just use another Cataclysm, she was able to use more than one now, but… she was getting cocky. That was her first mistake. 

She reached to grab the blade of the air, thinking her magic suit would stop the blade. 

She wasn’t counting on the other guy being arrogant for a reason. 

Black Cat grabbed the sword with her palm, and screamed in pain when her hand started to get a hot burning sensation. 

She stumbled backwards, and looked at her hand in shock. 

“Robin, the sword! It’s… it’s cursed!” She stumbled out of the way, still in shock she could get injured by it, and the swordsman took advantage of this. 

Robin watched as he swung at the terrified girl. 

“NO!” He ran to her. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry. 
> 
> So very sorry.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY HERE'S THE NEXT CHAPTER

“NO!” He yelled as The swordsman took a giant gash into Black Cat's shoulder. She screamed. 

He rushed forward, and snatched her out of the way before he could completely finish her off. 

Robin held her close to his chest as they hit the floor, squeezing hard, and barely registered what was happening as he felt a burning sensation on his arms. 

He figured he was taking a hit for her. 

He figured wrong as he opened his eyes and realized he was glowing. 

His arms were burning because they were glowing bright red. 

“Robin…” Black Cat choked. “What the shit.”

He didn’t let go.

He just kept holding onto her. 

Eventually, the glowing subsided, and their opponent was mysteriously gone. 

“Where did he go?” He rasped, his eyes darting around, looking for the enemy. 

“Him? You worried about _him_ ? You just started randomly glowing, and _you’re worried about him_?” She looked at him like he was crazy. 

“You mean… that’s not normal?”

“No! I never _glowed_ as Ladybug!” She took a step back away from him, and then they walked back out where they had come in. Her cut on her hand was gone, along with the shoulder wound.

“So what your saying is… If that’s not normal…” They thought about that for a second. 

“Holy shit, you’re a Ladybug.” She whispered. 

“I'm a Robin, but thank you.” He corrected. 

“No, I mean… you’re not just _a_ Ladybug, you’re… _my_ Ladybug.” They let that sink in for a second. 

They reached a safe location, and she said, 

“Claws in.”

“Spots off.”

“Plagg, you didn’t say that there’s only _one_ perfect match for every user? Like, some sort of soulmate or something?” She asked him, looking back and forth between her kwami and her best friend. 

“The Black Cat and the Ladybug can be used by anyone, but only when perfect matches meet each other can they tap into the full power.” Plagg munched on a snack. “It’s not soulmates, that was a silly word made up by a desperate man, but it is, in theory, quite similar.”

“What he’s leaving out is the chance of a perfect match even meeting, much less both being users, is… it’s very slim odds.” Tikki added on.

“No kidding, huh?”

She looked up at him, and cupped the side of his face in her hands. 

“Bugaboy.” She grinned at him, and then started to laugh as she walked away from him. 

“What?” He frowned at Tikki.

“Inside joke.” Tikki shrugged. 

* * *

“Plagg, are there any powers you're holding out on me? I’m not gonna start glowing anytime soon, are I?” She asked as she stepped out of the shower in the dorm that night. 

“Uh…” Plagg looked more than a little guilty. 

_“Plagg.”_ She gave him a horrified look. 

“No, no glowing, but your cataclysms are going to get stronger. I think, about 900 years ago, I had a Katze Der Nacht who once figured out how to _throw_ a Cataclysm. I’m not sure though, it’s been a very long time since someone tapped into deeper powers.” She sighed. 

“Seriously?”

“Oh yeah, it was quite impressive, it was light black lightning, like what I imagine an evil Thor to almost be like-”

“No, I meant… ugh nevermind.” She sighed and went back to her clothes. 

* * *

Marinette was bouncing her leg as she thought about Damians new powers. 

He could heal things, but that was an ‘in the suit’ power. She wondered if he would get any ‘out of the suit’ powers. 

She was so distracted with thinking about him it wasn’t until halfway through the next class she realised she wrote the wrong answer down for one of the questions. 

Shit.

Time to go back to being Old Marinette who broke into places for her own selfish purposes. 

* * *

“J, help me break into this classroom.” Marinette said as he passed by her. He wouldn’t even have noticed her if she didn’t say anything. 

“How?”

“Break the handle?” She asked. 

“I can’t do that, M, you dumbass, it would be way too obvious someone broke in.” She huffed. 

“Fine. I’ll pick it myself.” She grumbled, but he didn’t go anywhere. “Aren't you going somewhere?”

“I said I wouldn’t break it, not that I’d leave.” He hitched his backpack up on his shoulders, and played lookout. “What are you rebaking in for?”

“I messed up an answer on my test. I want to change it.” She grumbled, and started messing with a hairpin. 

“Why don’t you just ask Plagg to let you in?”

“I’ve done that before, it was effective, but he’s gone off looking for snacks.”

“Seriously? How often do you break into empty classrooms?”

“More than you-” He heard a snap, and she took a deep sigh. Then a second later, her heartbeat picked up _fast_. 

“Uh, J?” She sounded terrified. 

“Yeah, M?” He looked down to see her looking up at him, a terrified look in her eyes. “I think I found another one of my hidden powers.” She pointed to the handle, and he stared at the charcoal dent she made in it. 

“Oh no.”

* * *

“Hey, Damian?” Marinette looked extremely guilty as she found him sitting at a table in the library. “You know that… _glowing_ thing you did the other day?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you… I discovered a new power when I broke a door handle on accident, can you fix it?” She said quietly. He gave her a confused look at first, and then burst into laughter. 

“You broke a door handle?” He stood up, grinning, and followed her to where the door handle was. He wanted to see the broken handle. 

“Yeah…” 

“How did you do that?”

“Apparently, I can… I can _breathe_ destruction?” She sounded like even she still didn’t know how it worked. 

“What?”

“Yeah man, I don’t know either.” She shrugged, and they found Jon standing in front of a door.

He moved, and Damian saw the damage. 

“Oh, this is _so cool_.” He grinned, and picked it up. “How did you do it?”

“You know how Jon can do that thing where he breathes really card and freezes things?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I got frustrated and sighed dramatically, and… where I breathed on it, it broke.”

“This is awesome.” He inspected it, scratched at it a little, but then held into it. “Ok, no promises, but I’m gonna try.” He focused his concentration, and then fixed it back to normal. 

“Thanks, D.” She grinned, and then opened the door. “Appreciated.”

* * *

For being the first day of February, it was oddly warm out. 

So Damian and Marinette decided to go get ice cream.

And walk there. 

And they found themselves telling all sorts of odd stories. 

“Wait, you’ve used the ring before? Under a different name?”

“Yeah, I was Ladynoir.” She shrugged. “But… Ladyboir looked wildly different Black Cat.”

“Oh, I can imagine.”

“Can you? Can you really?”

“Want to show me, then?” He challenged her. 

“Ok.” She ducked into an alley way, and raised her fist. “Plagg, claws out!” She yelled, and before him stood Ladynoir.

Her suit, instead of being all black and a little gray sweatshirt and skinny jeans, was an all black catsuit that had bright green piping. 

Her eyes were no longer glowing blue, but a dull dark green.

They looked just like his eyes. 

Somehow, that scared him. 

“You’re eyes…” He trailed off. 

“Honestly? That’s the part I miss most about the new costume. I think these eyes were a little cooler, a little more cat-like, but going back to them might give me away so I had to change them.” She shrugged. 

“You know, if you did go back to having them, I bet so many of my siblings would joke about how you would look like Jon out of the mask and look like me in the mask.” He noted. She snorted. 

“I didn't even realise that.” She giggled, and called her transformation off. 

“I miss the hair, though.” He tried to change the subject. 

“Really? I don’t. I like having short hair.” 

“You know, I’m thinking we need to start a list.”

“A list?”

“Yeah, we need to start keeping a list. Call it, Marinette’s Mar-Inagerie of her many Mar-Identities.” She giggled again. 

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m completely serious.” He nodded. “Your Mari-Many identities need to be kept in a file so we don’t accidentally Mari-Murdur you one of these days.” 

“You’re ridiculous.” She laughed. “Next thing you know, you start making dumb puns about bugs.”

“I’m sure I can come up with a few.”

“I would literally murdur you.”

“Please don’t Mari-Murdur me.” 

“Alright, that’s it.” She jumped up onto his back, and pretended to put him in a chokehold. “Goodbye, D. It’s been nice knowing you, but the jokes are too much. You have to go now.”

“No! I beg forgiveness!” 

“It is too late for you! You are beyond forgiveness!” She got excited, raising her voice, and a few people on the sidewalk were giving them strange looks. She didn’t care. She was having fun for the first time in years. 

_Holy shit, I’m having fun?_ She realised. _I’m genuinely having fun!_

* * *

“Hey?” He wondered where she went, she spaced out for a second. 

She jumped down off of his back, and gave him a funny look before leaning on him, pulling his arm over her shoulders, and asking him about what flavor he would want when they got there.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New sub-plot: Power unlocking when they 'level-up'.
> 
> Also: edited because of a spelling error. And because I realized I had somehow missed a sentence.
> 
> Edit AGAIN: I need to clarify, the whole 'breathing detraction' thing came form the Sandboy episode where Plagg was let loose on his own and he caused a big hole in the sidewalk. I'm imitating her new powers based on what I think the Kwami's are capable of when left on their own.


	30. Chapter 30

Black Cat somehow managed to get her ass handed to her.

Again. 

Fighting an emotional old man. 

Again. 

She really needed to start making more of those potion things for when she met Mr. Freeze the next time. 

But at least this time, he didn’t get away. 

No, she got him, but just barely. 

“Thanks, ma’am.” A cop nodded at her, and she grunted in response. 

She clung to her pole as it projected her upwards, and she landed on a roof. 

Her chest felt tight, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe. 

She guaged her surroundings, and realised Jon’s brother’s apartment wasn’t very far away. 

Right down the street.

She made her way that direction, and found he was home.

She knocked on the window, and he jumped. 

“What the-” He turned, and saw Black Cat. 

“Help.” She mumbled, and he opened the window. 

She promptly collapsed on the kitchen floor. 

* * *

She woke up somehow both very cold and very hot at the same time. 

Her left arm was cold, freezing even, and her right arm felt like it was melting. 

She opened her eyes and came face-to-face with the bottom part of a fridge. 

_ What the- _

_ Oh. _

_ I’m on the floor. _

_ Floor of where? _

_ Conners place, that’s where. _ She remembered. 

“Hey, do you have any- Oh. Hello there.” Tim.

“Mh.” She grunted in response. 

“Having fun?”

“No.”

“Need anything?”

“Blanket.”

“You  _ have  _ a blanket, you silly goose.”

“‘Nother blanket.”

“I can’t imagine you would when it’s 80 fuckzillion degrees in here-”

“Floor.”

“Huh?”

“Floor cold.”

“Ohhhh.” She heard him grab something from off the counter, and move somewhere else. 

A few seconds later, she heard a funny noise next to her, and realised he had dropped one on the floor next to her head. She slowly struggled to sit up, and spread it out so she was on them both, and then laid in a patch of sunlight. 

“You really _ are  _ a cat.” Conner said from wherever it was that he had been, and she scrunched her nose in disgust. 

Then she felt something hit her in the head. 

It was small, so it didn’t hurt. 

“The fuck is this?”

“Granola bar.” Tim answered. 

“The fuck?”

“You need to eat something, you know.” Conner threw an apple at her. She caught it. 

“Oh. Ok. After nap.”

“You’ve been sleeping for eight hours, get up and eat something.”

She hissed at him. 

But she listened. 

“You’re not my mom.” She grumbled when he asked if she wanted real food.

“No but I fucking might as well be.” Conner snapped at her, and she paused. 

“Do you have cereal? Oh, and Plagg likes cheese.”

* * *

“Marinette, you missed the whole first half of the day, where the hell were you?” Damian glared at her as she sat down at the lunch table

“As far as the office knows? Your dad took me to a dentist appointment.”

“Seriously?” Jon gave her an impressed look. “You managed to use-”

“Where were you  _ really _ ?”

“I may or may not have over-exerted myself last night and crashed on Conners kitchen floor.” 

“What?” They said at the same time. God, it’s like having two knit-picky older brothers.

“You heard me the first time.” She stole a cookie from Jon’s plate and a pickle from Damian’s. 

“How does that explain the-”

“Tim forged me one.” She shrugged, and munched on the cookie. 

“You used Tim-”

“-To forge you a note?”

“I mean, it was honestly _ his  _ idea. I was just gonna show up and see if anyone noticed. He said that was dumb.”

“He’s right it is dumb.”

“And then he said no one would dare try and contradict me if I said Mr. Wayne had taken me out of school, so we went with that instead.”

“You scare me sometimes.”

“I should scare you all the time.”

* * *

It took her a while to figure it out, but she eventually got what plagg meant by ‘throwing a cataclysm’. 

“Cat!” A sparkly Robin yelled. “You have to-” He was cut off for some reason.

But she knew what he meant. 

She had to cataclysm the control panel of this freaky weird seeming-sentient room that was attacking them. But her legs were pinned.

She couldn’t move them. 

She couldn’t save him. 

She couldn't save them. 

She looked over at the control panel, scared out of her mind. 

She reached her hand as far as it would go. 

“CATACLYSM!” She screamed, as opposed to her usual secretive whisper, and imagined it was like a baseball. 

She pretended to throw the baseball. 

What looked like a glowing black orb left her hands and hit the panel with a splash. 

But it wouldn’t take full effect until it was kicked, or something. 

“Lucky Charm!” She heard somewhere behind her. 

A small knife flew at the panel, hit in the same place where she had, and everything stopped. 

She fell to the ground with an, 

“Oof!” As she was dropped, and the silence that followed was almost deafening. 

“You ok?” Robin asked. 

“Never better.” She grumbled. 

He picked up his knife, inspected it, and then threw it into the air. It dropped. 

“Why didn’t it do the thing you said it would?”

“You have to say ‘Miraculous Ladybug’ dumbass.”

“But I’m not Ladybug.”

“Fine. Say Miraculous Robin, then.”

“That’s dumb.”

“I know, but it’s the rules.”

“The rules are dumb.”

“Just do it.”

“Miraculous Robin.” He deadpanned, and threw the knife in the air. 

Everything disappeared. 

“Wait, what?” She looked all around the room, but there was nothing. 

It was all gone.

“Do you think-”

“I think Tikki decided weapons weren’t worth fixing and up and decided to get rid of them.” She shook her head with slight amusement. 

That was such a  _ Tikki _ thing to do. 

* * *

  
  


“I’m worried about that M kid.” Conner complained to Lois as she made a lasagna. 

She wasn’t really his mom, but they both liked to pretend that she was. 

“I think we’re _ all  _ a little worried about Marinette.” She agreed. 

“She got beat up pretty badly in a fight again, and it was near my place, and she crashed, quite literally, on my kitchen floor.”

“No kidding, huh?”

“And then she missed school because she just wouldn’t wake up.”

“Huh. Keep that kid around, and people might think the new Superman’s pulling an old Batman with adopting kids.” 

“Ha, very funny.” 

“I’m serious!” She insisted, smiling as she shook her head. 

“You don’t seriously-”

“People are crazy, they’ll believe anything. Especially if it comes from someone else.”

“Huh.” He said af if he didn’t believe her. 

She came up with a hilarious plan to make him believe her.

Just for the hell of it. 

As if it were a ‘writing practice’ exercise. 

She was going to write a gossip piece. 

To piss off Conner. 

And it was going to be  _ fabulous _ .

She just needed the perfect picture to go with it. 


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette holds all the braincells.
> 
> Also the oven broke at work yesterday so I have more time to write than I thought I would. Yesterday and today. I only have to go in for an hour to help with the Lobster orders.

“So, what are everyone’s plans for this wretched Valentine's day?”

“Damian, why are you so against Valentine’s day?”

“IT HAS BEEN COMMERCIALIZED.” He stared at her deeply, offended she would ask such a silly question. 

“Ah.” Marinette nodded. “So sorry.”

“M, you want to watch a horrible movie with me for Valentine’s day?”

“Seriously? _ What _ have I told you about not asking me out until you change your music taste?” She teased. 

“Not a date,  _ idiot. _ ” He rolled his eyes. 

“Well? Why was I invited and-”

“Hey  _ you two, _ you wanna watch a movie on the fourteenth?” He fixed his sentence. 

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’d love to.”

“Thanks, you ridiculous people who for some reason don’t love me.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Thanks, Damian. Appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome.”

* * *

  
  


She walked into her homeroom on Valentine’s day, and found that the student counsel had organized a fundraiser where they sold carnations with little notes attached to them. 

She hadn’t even noticed they were selling them. 

The teacher handed them out, and she got three. 

The first two had nearly identical notes. 

_ ‘Don’t tell J I got you one, I want to see him go crazy trying to figure out who sent it. -D.’ _

_ ‘Don’t tell D I gave you a flower, I want to watch him freak out and try to find who gave it to you. -J.’ _

She shook her head at the two idiots, and looked at the third one. 

ON the card, in the fanciest most beautiful handwriting, was written, 

_ ‘Stop leaving your fucking socks on the floor you bitch  _ _ ❤️ _ _ ~With much love, Bella.’ _ She laughed out loud, and got a few funny looks from her classmates.

She didn’t care. 

She took the heart-shaped notes, and carefully put them in her notebook. 

She made her way to chemistry, holding her three flowers in her hand. 

* * *

“Wow M, three flowers?” Jon raised an eyebrow at her.

“Apparently I’m very loved.” She grinned. 

“Who are they from?” Damian tried to sound casual. 

He was not casual. 

Like, at all.

“Well, one of them is from Bella,” She played with the petals, a little pit, admiring them, “It was a message asking me to put my socks away, but the other two…” She looked up and stared him in the eyes, making sure Jon could see, “I have no idea who the other two are from.”

She heard him try to choke back a laugh, and Damian raised an eyebrow at her. 

_ This is the most entertaining thing I’ve done in years.  _

“No idea, huh?” He asked. 

“Nope. None at all.”

“Huh. You want me to look into it for you?”

“Hm, I don’t know. I think I kinda like having this air of mystery around it.” She shrugged. He narrowed his eyes at her. She didn’t back down. 

“Uh-huh? Really?”

“Yep.” 

“You don’t want me to see who that one’s from?”

“Nope.”

“What if you  _ do _ want to know, though?” He tried. “Like, if it’s someone you want to know about, like, I don’t know someone really cute?”

“I’m good. No reason to look into it at all.”

“Mh.” He nodded and she didn’t believe him at all. 

* * *

“That was hilarious, watching his mind explode like that.” Jon said to her as they walked down the hall.

_ Round two _ , she thought. 

“Wasn’t it?”

“But you do actually know who the second one’s from, right?”

“Yup.”

“So, who is it?”

“Why would I tell you?” She raised an eyebrow at him. He stopped in the middle of the hallway.

“What?”

“Yeah, I get to play mystery with him, why don’t I get to play mystery with you?” She shrugged. 

“No, you can’t, you aren’t  _ seriously _ going to-”

“Karma’s a bitch, aint it?” She grinned at him, and walked into her next class. She left him standing confused in the hallway. 

* * *

At lunchtime, both of them seemed distracted. 

Looking around, scowling at everyone, and trying to read their expressions. 

Marinette enjoyed every second of it. 

She hadn’t enjoyed scheming like this in a long time. 

But trolling her two best friends, she just enjoyed being a general chaos-creator.

* * *

She got on her motorcycle, her glorious new motorcycle, and drove herself to Jon’s house after school.

“I’m home!” She yelled dramatically, leaving her helmet on the kitchen table. 

“You don’t live here!” Damian yelled back. 

“Neither do you!” Jon pointed out. 

“Shut the fuck up!” Damian yelled at him. 

She walked in, and stole the blanket off the foot of his bed to wrap herself up in like a burrito. 

“Does Burrito-Nette want to play a round?” Jon handed her a controller, and she wiggled her arms out of the blanket to take the controller. 

“Prepare to have your ass kicked, Wayne.” She grinned. 

“Oh please, like you could ever kick my ass.”

“I did a pretty good job of kicking both your asses today, didn’t I?” She teased. 

“Huh?”

“What?”

“Oh you are too stupid for your own good.  _ You both _ were the other person you were so angrily trying to hunt down. You both tried to pull the same trick on each other. And the best part is  _ it worked. _ ”

“Oh no way.” Damian scowled at Jon. 

“You too?” He asked. 

“Yeah. Yeah, me too. M, you are  _ such _ a fucking asshole.”

“Yeah, I know.” She pressed start, and the game began. 

* * *

She happily munched on her steamed vegetables, ever appreciative of Lois’s cooking, when Jontold a very shitty pun. 

She rolled her eyes, and gave a stressed deep breath. 

_ Oops.  _

She had forgotten about that power. 

“Sorry Mrs. Kent.” She said with a mouthful of food as her fork disintegrated onto her plate. “I haven’t quite figured out how to control that one yet.”

“Oh it’s ok honey.” She assured her. “You know, when Jon was eight, he accidently destroyed the whole bathroom when he accidentally heat-lasered the mirror.” She giggled. 

“Mom!” He complained embarrassedly. “She doesn’t need to know that!”

“No, I do, it’s very cathartic, hearing about your problems.” She nodded. She noticed the fork slowly mending itself, the flaky bits on her plate slowly disappearing. 

Damian was subtly trying to fix it, except that he was glowing slightly. 

“And then there was a time where he had his X-Ray vision go haywire, and-”

“Mum!” Marinette giggled at Jon’s distress. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.” She insisted. 

  
  



	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I FORGOT TO POST IS AT SIX WHOOPS MY BAD 
> 
> ft. Jae slowly killing his Maribat readers PART ONE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING SHE CRIES A LOT AND BAD THINGS REFERENCES

Her mother called her that night. To tell her how nice of a day it had been, and how especially grateful she felt there were no more Akuma’s to worry about.

That hurt her more than she cared to admit that it did.

How her mother would thank the side of her she didn’t even know was a side before benign grateful for her own kid. 

She tried to keep herself together through the whole conversation, but it was difficult. 

They talked about so many things, but… 

The first part still stung. 

* * *

After she hung up, she thought she might be able to go to her studio, find a commission to take on for the first time in a while, but she didn’t. 

She just opened a music app and played the first playlist she saw. 

Then she texted Damian. 

_ ‘Help.’ _

_ ‘Huh?’ _

_ ‘I need help.’ _

_ ‘How bad is it?’ _

_ ‘I’m listning to Jon’s dumb playlist of awful love love songs.’ _

_ ‘Oh god, it’s a ten.’ _

_ ‘Bitch, this is an eleven.’ _

_ ‘Even worse.’ _

_ ‘Hug me? Please?’ _

_ ‘I’m already out the door.’ _

_ ‘Oh thank god.’ _

* * *

She opened her dorm room door, and then marched back over onto her raised bed. She had to jump to get up on it. But she did. 

“Hey.” Bella nodded at him. 

“Greetings.” He nodded in return. 

“Welcome to the mental breakdown party.”

“Oh?”

“I’m in no condition to help, so don’t ask for any.” She said before she walked out the door.

Marinette patted the space next to, and he climbed up, holding one of her silly pink pillows in his lap. 

“Want to tell me what happened?”

“Mom called.”

“Ah.” He nodded. He knew about shitty moms. “That’s a mood.” She picked her head up, and moved herschel so she was spread across his lap, her head on one of his knees. 

“Thanks.” She mumbled. “I just feel… I feel like nothing right now.”

“Oh?”

“To not get Akumatized by Hawk-Bitch, I had to… I had to shut my emotions off, so make myself less vulnerable. If I didn’t feel anything, he couldn’t… he couldn’t hurt me.”  _ Oh. Oh no.  _ “And then… and that’s why I’m like this. Why I’m such an asshole. Because I had to make myself not look like a target.” She took a shaky breath, and he hoped she didn’t cataclysm her bed. He would hate to have to fix something so big. He hadn’t tried that before yet. 

“You aren’t an asshole, M.”

“No, but…” She sniffled. “But sometimes, I’m still like that. I still act like I have to be on guard all the time, even though he’s gone. I still act like I have to prepare for him to come back at any moment, and it’s not fun.” She started to cry. “It’s not fun for me, having to constantly remind myself that I don’t have to be scared of everything and everyone all the time. That I’m allowed to have feelings, I’m allowed to have friends, I don’t need to keep myself closed from everything all the time.”

“I know how that feels. Trust me. I do.”

“I don’t wanna feel like this anymore. I want to talk about my feelings and my life and make friends without feeling like I have to prepare for repercussions.” She sat up, and turned to face him. He handed her a tissue. She took it, and then threw it away. 

She sat in his lap, wrapped her legs around his waist, and put her head on his shoulder. 

“You’re the absolute best, you know that?”

“Huh?”

“I call you the worst all the time, and I know I will again, but right now. Right now you’re the best.”

“Thanks.” He started to play with her hair, not sure what else to do, as she sat there and hugged him. “You’re pretty cool yourself.” She choked out a laugh, and then started to laugh some more. 

“Thanks.” She giggled, and leaned back. 

“You know, sitting like this, you’re almost as tall as me.” He pointed out, and she flicked him in the nose. He wrinkled his nose, and stuck his tongue out at her. 

“See? There you go, being the worst again.” She smiled, and then hugged him again. 

“Imagine what the rest of the school would say if they saw us right now.” He mused. 

“They would think they were hallucinating. The savage bitch is ugly-crying on the shoulder of the stone-cold kid for some reason kindly comforting her. What a scene.” She hugged him tighter, and he hugged her back. 

Yeah. 

What a scene they were. 

* * *

He stayed until Bella came back, a little frazzled, but stable enough to make sure they both lived through the night. 

He finally let her go after that. 

She was sleeping, but he just gently set her down, pulled a blanket over her, and walked out. 

He got into his car in the dark, but instead of driving anywhere, he just sat there. 

Memories flashed through his head. 

_ ‘She’s a trauma victim, so be nice to her’ _

_ ‘I guess I just fucking hate superheroes.’ _

_ ‘I never did get the chance to thank you. For keeping her alive. _ ’

_ ‘You looking at something, Wayne? _ ’

_ ‘She looked happy.’ _

_ ‘I have the miraculous of the earrings’ _

_ ‘Don’t call me that.’ _

_ ‘Been stabbed.’ _

_ ‘I don’t want to be like this anymore’ _

_ ‘Do you know what this means?’ _

He figured it out now. He didn’t know then, but he knew it now. 

She was still in there. 

The girl who played games while trying not to drop eggs, who laughed until she choked, was still in there. 

The girl who smiled without fear was still there. 

And he was going to bring her out if it was the last thing he did. 

Even after her partner betrayed their trust. 

Even after the love of her life lied to her and used her.

Even after her friends abandoned her. 

Even after her parents sent her away and asked her not to come home for ‘her own good’. 

Even after she lost everything. 

She was still savable.

She deserved to be saved. 

More than anything in the world. 

Because she was the girl who trusted him with everything. 

She was the girl who ran to him when she got hurt. 

She talked to him like it was easier than anyone else. 

She treated him like a human being. 

And she didn’t believe herself to be worthy of having feelings. 

That was a bunch of bullshit. 

And he was going to fix it. 

He was going to make her smile. 

And he thought he knew just the thing to start with. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just saying.  
> I've been both the Damian and the Marinette in this situation.   
> The person refusing to leave someone until I knew someone else wouldn't let them die.   
> And the person who needed someone else to watch me so I wouldn't die.   
> ALSO SORRY ABOUT THAT I'M PUSHING MY NINE O'CLOCK POST BACK TO ELEVEN TO SPACE IT OUT A BIT I'M SO SORRY


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AH IT'S HERE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am, however, so very tragically sorry I know nothing about fencing. Like, AT ALL.

“Marinette, fence with me.” Damian didn’t phrase it like a question. 

“Sure.” She threw her backpack down on a set of bleachers, and followed him. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know.” He handed her a sabre, and went for the other gear, when she walked away. “Hey, wait a second-”

“Nope. Get over here.” He frowned, dropped whatever it was he was holding, and followed her. 

“Aren’t you worried if I hit you too hard-”

“I trust you.” She shrugged. “Plus, if you do any real damage… you can fix me.” He let that sink in for a second. 

“Uh, ok then.” He hesitantly pointed the sabre at her. 

This was much different to what he had in mind. 

She didn’t even say go, just started going. 

But he was from the League. 

Very few things took him by surprise. 

Then she started doing what she had with Kagami, she started to try and move him on purpose. 

She pushed him around the room, and pivoted herself to try and make him move her. 

But only to where she wanted to go.

Yet he didn’t care. 

He didn’t see it like a competition. 

He wasn’t trying to force her anywhere, he wasn’t trying to win anything. 

He was just having fun with his friend. 

She made a box at first, and then did something completely out of the ordinary. 

She did a twirl. 

And then, of course, immediately stabbed him. 

But he realised she wasn’t playing to fight. 

She was playing to dance. 

They were ballroom dancing with swords in the dark at their highschool.

She was the strangest person he had ever met, and he knew Jon. 

But she was also the coolest. 

And she was smiling. 

He was forever grateful she insisted on not wearing a helmet because she was grinning like a madman, and laughing. 

Usually he had to work to make her laugh, start by getting her mood up, make her let her guard down, then say something funny. 

At most, she might snort at his antics. 

But now she was laughing, having fun. 

And he barely did anything to even try. 

It hit him harder than getting punched by Jon that he was terribly crazily madly in love. 

Then she ran. 

* * *

She was wondering why he was letting her do this. 

Why would he let her push him around like this, when he hated losing. 

But she didn’t spend too much time worrying about it. 

She was having fun. 

It took her a second to realise she was smiling again. 

She was smiling, and hadn’t even been aware of it. 

It suddenly hit her how she  _ always  _ felt this way around him. 

Like she didn’t have to  _ work _ to look like she wasn’t miserable. 

She didn’t have to work to look like she wasn’t miserable  _ because she wasn’t miserable.  _

She felt like a normal person again around him, and she didn’t even have to try. 

She naturally found peace in being around him. 

Despite all the sniping they did at each other, he had a calming presence. 

Out of sheer nervousness, she laughed. 

And then she had a thought.

And then she ran. 

He hesitated a second, and then followed her up into the bleachers. 

* * *

She made him chase her up and down the funny unbalanced surface, until she tried to make it look like she had cornered herself. 

She let him back her into the corner, between the bleacher guardrails and the wall, and she jumped up on the bench before stooping, her back quite literally against the wall. 

She let her arm down, and he stood in front of her, now almost even in height. 

“You want to know why I made you follow me up the stairs?” She teased. 

“Why?” He knew why. He wished they would get to that point faster. 

“Because it gave me a height advantage.” He moved a little bit closer. 

“For what?” He knew exactly what for. 

“For kissing you.” And she did.

* * *

She wished she could say it was a long and romantic one. 

That she had done all that clever work for a fairy tale act of sorts. 

But her lips had no sooner graced his than the lights turned on and they both jumped in surprise. 

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Damian glared at the door, and she shared his anger. 

Three other kids from the club walked in, a few minutes too early. 

“Can we take this somewhere else?” he asked her. 

“Gladly.” She grumpily followed him. 

* * *

  
  


“So, a do-over?”

“A little disappointed my dramatic speech was all for nothing.” She scowled, and he snorted at her. 

“Not nothing, I now know you like me too.”

“Too?”

“M, you are literally the _ coolest _ person I have ever met. And I know the entire Justice League.” She blushed, and giggled. “Now, that’s not a dramatic speech, but can I please have that kiss now?”

“Oh, right, that. Yeah. Yeah, you can.”

Two hours later, they hadn’t moved.

He had pushed her up against the side of his car, and then one kiss turned into two, and then two kisses turned into about thirty and a long conversation.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry. I'm so sorry.  
> Also I'm really not.


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Marinette refers to Damian as her "significant idiot" because I'm a solengelo shipper, if you catch what I mean.
> 
> I try and stay about 10 chapters ahead, just in case, but this is 34 and I'm up to 46 and I think I'm gonna only write a little but today and go back to working on a few unposted projects. so sorry if I post late, or forget, I have a really really good one I've been working on for a while. It's a daminette College AU and it's *pretty cool*.

He snatched three muffins from Alfred the next day, avoiding as many people as possible on his way out the door. 

“Whoo, going somewhere Baby Bird?”

“Yes, Grayson, I am.” He walked away without elaborating. 

* * *

Marinette was late. 

She had slept through breakfast, and was late to period one. 

“I’m not late you’re late!” She yelled as she ran through the door a half a second after the bell rang. 

“So, I’m pretty sure-”

“Shut up J.”

“Shutting up now.”

“I got you a muffin.” Damian produced a muffin seemingly out of this air. 

“Oh hallelujah.” She took it. She noticed Jon staring at them funny. 

“What’s up, J?” She frowned at him. 

“What the hell happened to you two?” He looked back and forth between them. 

“Why?”

“You look… different. On a chemical scale, I mean.”

“You want the long version or the short one?” Marinette deadpanned. 

“There’s two?”

“I challenged her to fence, she kicked my ass, I fell in love, and then made out in the parking lot for like two hours.”

“Really?” Marinette gave him a disgusted look. “You had to?”

“Hey, I thought I was the hero this morning for bringing you a muffin.” He defended himself, sinking down in his chair and crossing his arms.

“You aren’t the hero of jack shit.” She teased, and bit into her muffin. 

“Dammit, I’m a third wheel now.” Jon scowled down at his notebook. 

“Nah, I still love you just as much as my significant idiot, I’ll just spare you the flirtatious stabbing.” Marinette said through a mouthful of chocolate chip muffin. 

“Thanks.”

“Hey! I’m not an idiot!”

“No, you’re a  _ significant _ idiot.”

“Thanks.” He grumbled, and the teacher glared at them to shut up. 

* * *

  
  
  


Talia was furious. 

Her first attempt to get the ring has resulted in her son being a superhuman who had magic powers. 

Great. 

Wonderful. 

Now if she tried to kill her for them, he could just bring her back.

Fucking fabulous. 

And now he had some kind of bond with her, there was no way in hell she could get him to betray her. 

Her second plan to get them, to kidnap the girl, had  _ better _ go successfully. 

It  _ had _ to. 

She couldn’t afford for it to fail.

It would ruin so many things. 

She was going to get her. 

Use her as leverage. 

Get him to hand them over in exchange for the girl back. 

This was going to work. 

It needed to. 

* * *

  
  


“Come on, I’m bored.” Marinette tugged Jon down the side of the street. 

“You’re bored? Somehow, I don’t believe that, seeing as I can  _ see _ your mind going into panic mode. ” 

“Ok, so I may be panicking slightly and I kinda want ice cream because you said ice cream makes broken things better and I wanna feel better now get over here and fix me. I have to meet with Tim for something and it’s making me nervous.”

“Ok, ok, I’m coming.” He followed her. 

They got halfway there when they got caught in the middle of a fight. 

She didn’t even see what they were fighting over, it just suddenly exploded around them. 

She tried to look like a Normal Average Person while trying to get her way out of the fight, but someone pushed her backwards, and she lost sight of Jon. 

She got distracted, trying to look for him, but someone grabbed her.

She turned to fight them off, but looked into the evil eyes of a woman who was determined to take her. 

She had been the subject of the fight the whole time. 

She was hit with a dart gun. 

_ Not original, bro _ was her last thought before passing out. 

* * *

“Has anyone seen Marinette? She was supposed to be by now.” Tim frowned at his watch. Almost as if on cue, Jon ran in, panting.

“Someone kidnapped Marinette.” He choked, and Damian ran to his computer. 

“Seriously?” He mumbled under his breath, “I get a girlfriend for a  _ day and a half _ and someone kidnaps her?”

“The computer, Demon Spawn? Shouldn’t you, you know, go  _ look _ for her?”

“Not necessary.” He shook his head. 

“I know where she was, I saw them take her, I can use my hearing to try and-”

“I bugged the key I gave her.” He pulled up a map, and stuck in the code.

“Oh little D, that is a  _ serious _ breach of trust.” Dick frowned at him.

“Suck my ass.” He shot back, and saw it blinking on the screen. “Tim, tell me when that stops.” He pointed at him, and ran to the Batcave. 

“How do you know they didn’t take the key away from her and-”

“She put the key on her chain next to the ring, and she would sooner die than let them take her ring. Trust me.” He disappeared. 

“Why is Talia trying to call me about some bargain of some sort?” Bruce gave his sons a confused look. 

“Oh hell no.” Dick sighed, and Tim put his head in his hands. 

* * *

She woke up for some reason stuck to a table. 

“Plagg?” She whispered. 

“Don’t talk, kid.” He warned, from her sweatshirt hood. “They’re listening.” She sensed three other people in the room. 

She felt the ring under her neck, uncomfortably. 

_ That _ was Plaggs idea of trying to hide it?

She also sensed something covering her mouth that didn’t actually restrict her from talking. 

_ Fuck it. _

She concentrated her breathing, and disintegrated the thing.

She choked as the flakes fell back onto her face. 

“What the hell-” One of the people mumbled, and she blinked, trying to see exactly how stuck down she was. 

_ Two _ chains? And her hands tied together? Seriously? That was _ it _ ? Who did she think she was messing with, an ameture?

She pulled her hand to her face, breathed on the chains to break them, and the people started to go into a panic. 

She paid them no attention as she slipped out of the chains, and looked around for a door. 

A knife flew at her, but she reached behind her head and caught it without looking. 

“Nice try.” She observed her surroundings as she kicked ass. 

The table was in the middle of the room, there was a door somewhere to her left, it was mostly pitch black, but she could see pretty well with her Cat Vision. She also knew that was a dumb name to call it, but hey. She made the rules. 

There were counters, but nothing on them.

Nothing she could use as a weapon. 

She stuck with hand-to-hand combat. 

Actually, hand-to-sword now. 

She vaulted over the table, they clanged into each other, and she slipped out the door. 

On the other side, it was almost blinding. 

She had to blink a few times before checking out the hallway, and running for the end of it. 

Dead end.

She was tired.

She couldn’t do much more damage than what she already had. 

An alarm started going off, and the doors opened all around her. 

“Claws out.” She said.

They had managed to figure out she had slipped out the door in the dark. 

She cataclysmed the ceiling, and climbed up into it, escaping people trying to follow her. 

And immediately bonked her head on a pipe.

“Ow, fuck.” She dodged the next one.

She ran through the ceiling, climbing over and under pipes, and eventually used her baton as a type of scanner to see what was around her. 

The place was a warehouse, and it was full of nothing. 

Room upon rooms of people with swords, sure, but other than that, nothing. 

And the woman who had taken her storming about and looking furious. 

Above her was the roof. 

She used up one more cataclysm to make a sizable hole in the ceiling. 

She crawled out, and took a breath. 

She jumped off of the roof, and propelled herself in the direction of the city. 

* * *

  
  


“Where is she.” Robin demanded, glaring daggers at his mother. 

“You’ll get to know that when you give me those earrings.”

“This is not a gaming matter. You’re not allowed to just up and hurt people at your personal discretion.”

“Give me the miraculous, and you’ll both be fine.” She snarled.

A sound went off in his comms. 

_ ‘She’s on the move again, Robin.’ _ It was Tim.

“Did you take that ring?”

“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t, you’ll get your answers when-”

“You didn’t.” Robin laughed hollowly. “You… she’s gone. She’s gone, isn’t she.” He lowered his sword, and she narrowed her eyes at him. He laughed even harder when he realised he was right. 

“How could you-” He raised his sword back up at his mother, but in a non-threatening way. 

“I knew I would find a woman smarter than you some day.”

“Fine. She’s gone.” She spat at him. “You can leave, go chase your silly girl, my end of the deal has disappeared.” Robin shook his head, grinning,

“Someday I’m gonna marry that woman, and there will  _ jack shit _ you can do about it.” He jumped back out the window he crashed in through. 

* * *

She de-transformed as soon as she made it to the city. 

She practically fell down a set of stars that led to a subway station, and crashed into a train car. 

She pulled her knees to her chest, and her sweatshirt hood over her head. 

She stayed on for three stops, making her way to who knew where, she just needed to take a break, when she finally decided to get off. 

She walked up the stairs, having no phone and no way to call anyone, took a look around. 

And came face to face with Red Hood. 

“Going somewhere?”

“No idea.” She confessed, and blinked rapidly. 

“You ok?”

“I woke up from being hit with a tranquilizer and immediately ran ten miles, what the hell do you think?” She deadpanned, and he reached a hand out. She took it a half a second before collapsing again. 

“Come on kid, Robin’s gonna lose his mind.” He picked her up, and she didn’t object. 

* * *

She woke up in the batcave, and someone handed her a glass of water. 

“Hey.” Damian- No, Robin, asked, in the softest voice. 

“Hi.” She whispered, and managed to drink some water. 

“Are you ok?” She was sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of the table. He leaned on the table next to her, but was standing right in front of her. He was close enough she could lean forward onto him. 

“I’ll be fine.” She hugged him. He put one hand on her back and the other on the back of her head. 

“I apologize for my awful mother, she tends to get possessive of some things.” He said into the top of her head. 

“Mum, huh?”

“Yeah. She’s… not the best example of a gentle and caring person.” She heard some snort in agreement behind him. “You did a good job messing up her plans, though.”

“Thanks.” She mumbled. “Wait, what the hell did your mother want with me?”

“Use you as a bargaining chip to take the miraculous from me.” She almost laughed. 

“That is a laughably terrible plan.” She smiled into his chest.

“Isn’t it?” He agreed, and moved back slightly. 

He put both hands on her face, and put his forehead against hers.

“But listen to me about something, ok?”

“Yeah?”

“No matter what happens, I love you, ok?”

“Yeah, I know. I love you too. But I’m not kissing you until you brush your teeth.” He tried to fight a laugh. 

“Good to know being kidnapped hasn’t killed your sense of humor.”

“Humor? Bitch, that was completely serious.”

  
  



	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, um, funny story. 
> 
> I haven't been writing. 
> 
> I've spent the last four hours reading And They Were Roommates by Justcourtee
> 
> whoops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Older Brother Conner to the rescue.

February break came around, and they had Official League Business. 

The JL hadn’t quite figured out that Black Cat even existed yet, much less were they interested in asking her to join. 

“I’m only gonna be gone a week M, I’ll be fine.” Damian rolled his eyes at her pouting as he said goodbye. She made an offended face, but he gave her a kiss on the cheek, and the anger was slightly lessened. 

“Don’t get hurt.” She tried. 

“How can I, I’m Magic Robin now.” She gave a small smile, and Jon offered a pat on the head before heading out. “I’ll be fine, I promise.” She gave him a kiss goodbye, and hoped it wasn’t the last one. 

* * *

She had nothing to do all week. 

Actually, she had nothing to do for three days. 

That was when her phone rang. 

It was an unknown number.

There was no way it was any sort of telemarketer, Damina had the new number erased from pretty much anything possible online. 

The only way someone could calle her was if they punched it in directly. 

A million thoughts raced through her head, wondering if one of her old classmates had found it, or if there was an emergency and Damian was killed, or some other horrible thing like she picked up the phone and Lila answered, or some other awful thing, when she just… picked it up and answered it. 

“Hello?”

“Marinette?” It was Chloé.

“How the hell did you find me?” She wasn’t angry, just confused. 

“Did you not want to be found? I can hang up and pretend this never happened if you want me to.”

“No! I mean, uh, I’m pretty lonely right now, can we… can we talk?”

“Yeah.” She sounded relieved. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Anything but… Anything but about them.” 

“Oh, gladly.” There was a pause. What _ did  _ they have to talk about? “So, I’ve been looking into going into business school.” Chloé offered. 

“Really? You?”

“Hey, shut up.” She teased. “I’ve been looking into starting a non-profit charity business. I could live off Daddy’s money forever, and I probably will, but I might as well do something good while mooching off someone else.”

“Heh, yeah. That’s… that’s pretty cool of you, Chlo.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Let me guess, your inspiration is your teddy bear?”

“Hey fuck you. I thought we agreed to never speak of that!” She chuckled into the pillow she was holding. 

“You agreed, I listened.” She teased. “I agreed to no such things.”

* * *

They talked for three hours. 

About everything and nothing. 

About parents.

About how school was going academically.

And about Damian. 

“You can’t be serious.” Chloé didn't believe her that she got a new boyfriend. “You’re seriously dating that guy?”

“What?” She defended herself, “What’s wrong with Damian?”

“Nothing! He’s just… How the hell did you get someone as powerful as Damian Wayne?”

“Because I’m Marinette Mother Fucking Dupain-Cheng.”

“Really?” She sounded like she didn't believe her. 

“Actually, when he first met me, he hated me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I was sitting in his seat and he got mad at me and then I pushed his stuff onto the floor and he was pissed.”

“No kidding, huh?”

“But then I was friends with his best friend and we were forced to be nice to each other for him and then we were really good friends and then… I kinda fell in love with him.”

“The whole  _ hated him at first _ thing sound familiar?” She teased. 

“Oh.” Marinette paused. “Uh, not really.”

“Shit. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” it wasn’t. “Look, I’ve had fun talking to you, but I kinda gotta go, it’s… the time zones, you know?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I’ll go.”

She hung up, and stared at the ceiling. 

“You good?”

“Nah.”

“Ok.” There was a silence. “I’m going to sleep now.”

“Night, Bella.”

“Night Marinette.”

When Bella woke up, Marinette was gone. 

She wondered where she went, but didn’t panic over it. 

* * *

“What the hell?” Tim jumped at the sight of a kid sleeping on Conners couch. 

Then he realised it was just Marinette. 

“What happened?” She jumped up at his scream.

“You.” He took a deep breath to calm himself. “ _You_ are what happened.” he shook his head. “What are you doing here?”

“So _you_ broke into my apartment?” Conner frowned at her from the doorway.

“Yeah, basically.” She shrugged. 

“Why?”

“I…” She looked guilty. “I had a panic attack. I had nowhere else to go.” She crossed her legs in her lap, and they gave her a look of concern. 

“No better place to go?” Tim was slightly confused.

“I wanted to go home.” Her voice cracked. “But I couldn’t go home. I just really needed to get out of the dorm.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine. You need breakfast?” Conner was starting to think Lois was right. 

He was slowly pulling a Bruce. 

He had a kid now. 

And kids needed to eat breakfast. 

“You know, the school is gonna wonder why you’re missing, right?” Conner pointed out as he started to toast some frozen waffles.

“I’ll tell them Tim Drake had urgent business.” She shrugged. 

“So you plan on going back?”

“Nah, I’ll call them eventually.”

“So then how long do you want to be here?”

“Until Jon comes back and I can go bother him instead.” He tried not to laugh at that, even though she was completely serious. 

“Tim, call the school and apologize for pretending to have kidnapped Marinette.”

“Why do I have to-”

“Just do it.”

“Marinette, do you like… TV?”

“I brought my switch, can I hook it up to it?”

“Yeah, sure.” he shrugged, and she bounded over to plug her console into the TV. 

“I have Mario Kart, you want to play with me? I’ll unlock more things faster if more people play.”

“I’ll play with you.” She split her custom controller in half, gave one to Tim and one to Conner, and then kept her christmas gift controller for herself. 

“Let’s play one grand prix, and by the time we’re done the waffles should be ready.”

“Ok.”

* * *

“Holy shit you're kicking our asses.” Tim frowed in shocked horror. “You’re literally killing us.”

“I guess you need to play with me more often so you get better.” She smiled, and came in first. Again. For the fourth time. 

The timer dinged. 

“Ah, just exactly on time.”

“Would have finished sooner if Tim didn’t stop falling off the track on Rainbow Road.”

“Hey fuck you too kid.”

“Wanna play again?”

“Oh of course.”

“No, not right now, you need to eat the waffles.  _ Then _ you can play rainbow road again.”

“Ok.” She begrudgingly got up and ate the waffles. “Oh shit these are good waffles.”

“Seriously? I thought that since you’re, you know, french, and the french are super knit-picky about their food, that-”

“Dude.” She cut him off. “I depression-skipped meals for like three years. I haven’t eaten quality food in a really long time, I never ate breakfast until Damian practically threw muffins at me.” She rolled her eyes. It was sort of a joke. Sort of not. 

Oh yeah. 

He wasn’t _slowly_ pulling a Bruce.

He was  _ fastly _ pulling a Bruce. 

  
  



	36. Chapter 36

They weren’t back by the first day of school. 

Marinette walked alone through the halls, her head down, ignoring whispers.

She had headphones jammed on instead. 

She scowled at teachers who asked her to take them off, and they let her be. 

She copied all the notes, lip-read all the excess information and added that into her notes, and filled out all her papers she was given. 

All while listening to Jagged Stone at a stupidly high volume. 

* * *

At lunch, she sat alone, and had to scare off some girl who tried to talk to her. 

“So, rumor has it that you-”

“Go away.” She usually cared if she hurt someone’s feelings, but today she was not only Damian-deprived but also Jon-deprived as well and Jon was the one who made her want to put effort into being kind.

Damian made her feel like she should be kind to herself, Jon made her feel like she should be kind to others. 

Today, she was doing _ neither _ of those things. 

“Excuse me? Do you know-”

“Plus, D says rumors are dumb. Don’t listen to them. Unless the rumor is that I’ll stab you for trying to talk to me for an extended period of time. Now fuck off.” The girl nodded a little hesitantly, and eventually left her alone again. 

* * *

At the end of the day, she ditched her already-done homework in her room and headed out. 

“Where are you going?” Bella asked. 

“To brood dramatically.” She answered, and went to an alley she knew didn’t have security cameras. 

She transformed into Black Cat, and took off across the rooftops. 

Black Cat made a zig-zag pattern, seemingly going nowhere, until she ended up at Wayne Manor. 

She tried to open Damian’s window, she had seen Jon do it before, but couldn’t seem to make it work the way he had. 

She tried every odd which way, and was about to give up when someone opened the window to let her in. 

* * *

“Master Thomas, it seems as though Black Cat is attempting to use Mister Kent’s preferred point of entrance, but can’t make it work. Would you go let her in?” Duke gave Alfred a funny look, still after all these years wondering how the hell he did it, but obliged. 

Sure enough, in Damian’s bedroom window was an angry Cat.

“You all good out there?” He asked as he opened the window. 

“No.” She de-transformed, and marched over to Damian’s bed. 

She grabbed one of his pillows, curled up into a ball, and Plagg zipped off to go find cheese. 

“Everything ok?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“You want to talk about it?” He barely knew this kid, but then again, Damian was very secretive about his friends. 

He still wouldn’t tell them how long they’d been dating. 

“Not really.”

“Cool. Do you need anything?”

“Nah.” She mumbled, and he awkwardly walked out. 

This family got weirder every day. 

* * *

  
  


As soon as Damian got back, he wanted to look for Marinette. 

But it was also one in the morning. 

She needed sleep. 

But he wanted to see her. 

He decided on calling and seeing if she picked up. 

He grabbed his phone first thing when he got back in the cave, but she didn’t answer. 

That made him antsy, especially after the Talia incident. 

He nervously headed up to his room after putting all his gear away. 

He was looking down at his phone, checking notifications, when he realised his door had been opened. 

He scowled, and pushed it open a little more to find someone- no, not someone, his lovely girlfriend, sitting on top of his blankets and hugging his pillow. 

He sat down next to her, but he barely had time to pull his feet off the floor when she jumped up and slammed his head back into his headboard. 

“Oh! Shit, Damian, you scared me.” She pulled her hand off his throat, and he just grinned. 

“Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

“No.” She pouted. “You haven’t in a week.” 

“Well, I’m telling you now. Going from being _ that _ asleep to slamming my head into a board was pretty hot, I have to admit.” She blushed, and then scowled at him. 

“Fuck you. I missed you. And you scared me.”

“I scared you?”

“You were supposed to come back to school. I had to eat lunch  _ alone _ . Do you know how awful that was?”

“It was just food, Marinette. And I’m sure you had Bella to keep you company.”

“I had to play videogames with Tim. _ Tim, _ of all people!” She complained. “For being a tech wiz, he’s not very good at Mario Kart.” He sat back up, and traded his sweaty t-shirt for a clean one. 

“Yeah, well, I missed you too.” He had to push her out of the way slightly, she was still on top of the blankets and not actually under them. 

She scrambled to hug him as he laid down, and threw an arm over him. 

“Can I stay? Or are you gonna make me go home?”

“Why on earth would I make you go home?” He blinked at where his tiny girlfriend was practically clinging to his stomach. 

“Because of…” She trailed off. “I just  _ showed up _ here, unannounced.”

“I think it was a cute fun surprise. 

“No one except Duke actually knows I’m here.”

“Good. No one  _ needs  _ to know you’re here.”

“Yeah, but what if-”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Ok.

“Any other reason you can think of?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well then. You are  _ always _ welcome to come get cuddles. Anytime you want. I’ll drop anything if you say cuddles are more important.”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh yay.” There was silence for a moment. “I love you too, by the way.”

“I figured.” It was quiet for a second. “You know one thing I like about you? One of many, I mean?”

“Huh?”

“You don’t do stupid nicknames.”

“Nah, not all of them. I just have issues with ‘Bugaboo’ and ‘Princess’ because that’s what the Chat Noir called me.”

“Huh.” 

“I’m not really against anything if you come up with something creative. I know you and your many languages can probably come up with some franken-nickname of sorts that I would love.”

“I still hate cliché nicknames.”

“Cool.”

* * *

Her alarm went off five hours later. 

“What the hell?”

“I have to go get clothes, I got all angst-y and forgot to bring them with me last night.”

“You’re leaving me?” He pouted. 

“Clothes, Damian. I need  _ clean _ ones. People will think awful things of me if I show up to school in old clothes.” She had a point. 

“Fine. But I want a goodbye kiss first.” She rolled her eyes, and gave him one. “And a good morning one, too.”

“You can have it now or at school, which do you want?”

“Both?” 

“Nice try.” She teased, and transformed before jumping out the window. 

* * *

“So, that was… a long time to go brooding for.” Bella teased her. 

“Damian came home from wherever the hell it was he went.”

“Ooooh, and?”

“Yeah,  _ and _ that’s all you get to know.”

“Psh, fine then. I won’t tell you that I have a date tomorrow if you won’t share.”

“Awe, with who?”

“Details for details.” She made a face at her. 

“Fine. I’ll worm it out of one of your book club friends.”

“Dammit.”

* * *

“Was it just me or was it oddly cold walking past Demon Spawns room this morning?” Jason asked as if he were stupid. 

“Almost as if… the window was open?” Dick joined in the teasing. 

“Why Dickie bird, why on earth would the window be open?” Jason gasped, “If Damian hates being cold?”

“Maybe he got another stray Cat and had to let it in?” Dick shrugged dramatically. 

“He does seem to have taken a liking to those Cat’s recently.” Jason agreed.

“Maybe that had something to do with the extra voice coming from his room last night…” 

“I hate you both.”

  
  



	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I did not expect this fic to get this popular, gotta be honest.   
> the comments on this one alone take up about 90% of my inbox. Deadass.

“Jon!” She got excited to see him, and almost tripped as she jumped out of her seat to run to him. “I missed you!” She jumped up to hug him, and he caught her. “It was awful without you yesterday!”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, some  _ awful  _ girl tried to talk to me, and I didn’t have you to make her go away nicely and I yelled at her and she was _ miserable _ .” She complained. 

“Awe, that sucks.” He held onto her as they walked over to their table. “But how was your vacation week?”

“I beat Tim at every video game I own, and Conner made me frozen waffles and they were really good.”

“Did he put syrup on them, or was it the melted butter and brown sugar?”

“Both! And he also made me a peanut butter and jelly, or as he called it a PB&J, because we don’t really eat peanut butter in sandwiches in Paris and a whole bunch of other food I’ve never tried before. It was really fun.”

“Sounds like you had fun.” Jon set her down back in her seat, and she finally let go of him.

Marinete didn’t want to let go. She really really  _ really _ missed her best friend. 

“Kinda, yeah. But it would have been  _ more _ fun with  _ you _ .”

“Next time.” He promised, and sat down next to her. “April break. We can do something really weird.”

“Really weird? Like, really really weird?”

“Yeah, really really weird. Like, dye your hair or something.”

“Fun.”

“Or cut it.”

“No way in hell am I letting  _ you _ cut my  _ fucking hair _ .” She teased. 

“Damn, it was worth a try.”

“No, it really wasn’t.” She went back to munching on her toast. 

“Damian!” The girl from yesterday shrieked, and Marinette noticed him cringe slightly in the doorway. 

“Wait a second M, that wouldn’t happen to be-” Jon started to ask,

“The girl from lunch? Yeah, why?”

“Oh no.”

“Who is she?”

“She… moved away for a few months. I guess the rumors she was coming back were actually true.”

“Yeah, but what’s her name?”

“Sarah, I told you, I don’t want to talk to you.” Damian pushed past her, and she pouted dramatically. 

“Awe, but you make such terrible friends, and I hate that new kid, she’s just so-”

“Oh, you mean my lovely girlfriend?” He made an amused face as he walked towards her.

“What?!” The girl shrieked. 

“Hey.” Marinette stood up, and Jon just buried his face in his hands and leaned on the table. He didn’t want to watch this mess go down. “Are we gonna have another problem?”

“Both of you just sit down and shut up.” Jon sighed into the table. 

“Do you seriously think that you can just come up in here and-”

“Bitch I think I can do a lot of things. I  _ know  _ I can do even more.”

“How dare you! You can’t be serious, Dami, you wouldn't actually-” Sarah got cut off.

“Hey Babe, can I have that good morning kiss now? The one you promised me earlier?”

“Oh but of course.” She smirked, and the blond girl threw a fit as she stormed back over to where she had been before. 

“She’s gone, you know, you can stop making the rest of the cafeteria uncomfortable.” Jon threw a straw wrapper at them.

“Fine, fine, you win.” Damian begrudgingly let her go, and she smirked all the way back to the table. 

“So much for Mr. I-Don’t-Like-Nicknames.” Marinette rolled her eyes. 

“I only did it to piss her off.” He shrugged. 

“Yeah, sure.” She rolled her eyes jokingly. 

“I did!”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

* * *

  
  


“So, no more surprise people I have to worry about, right?” She asked in their period one class, leaning her back on Damian and sticking one of her legs in Jon’s lap. 

She almost said it as a joke. 

She was almost serious. 

She was more serious when they shared a look, and she realised there _ was _ . 

“Uh, M, we have a friend who got expelled last year named Maps and she moved to California, and, um, other than her yeah that’s it.”

“Seriously?”

“Well it’s not like it ever came up in conversation and we haven't talked in months other than hella vague texts.” Jon shrugged, sensing how confused she was by this. 

“Oh, and Lucy. There’s Lucy too, she'll be pissed if we forgot to mention her.”

“And Maya. Maya Ducard.”

“And Kathy Branden, don’t forget about her.”

“Who the hell are all these people? I thought I was your only friend?” Marinette wondered how they managed to keep this a secret, even if it were an accident.

“Mass expulsion last year after an april fools day prank went completely wrong. There was nothing I could do to get them back.”

“Not like you tried really hard.” Jon rolled his eyes. 

“Huh.” She chewed on her pencil, and used the angle she was sitting at to copy off of Damian. Jon, in turn, copied off her. 

“I love doing all the work for you idiots.” Damian scowled at them. 

“And we love you for your work.” Jon offered in return. 

“You fucking better.”

* * *

She was in her sewing room, working on a small commission she had taken, but only because it was small. 

She didn’t have a whole lot of time for sewing with class, but at least it was in the school and was super close. 

“Having fun?” Jon asked with a mouthful of popcorn in the back of the room. 

He had insisted she needed a microwave in her sewing room. 

And then he insisted she needed snacks. 

And then he ate the snacks. 

Like he was now. 

“Yeah, actually.” She grumbled as she struggled to thread the needle. “Why do I feel like the only reason you demanded there be snacks in here was sp you could bother me while I worked?”

“Because it’s true?” She snorted. 

“You’re the worst.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t let me watch you work if you didn’t love me.”

“That is true.” She nodded, and finally managed to get the two panels sewn together. “You are the second most important person in my life.”

“Second?!” 

“Dude.” She gave him a look. “You are a  _ very _ close second, like, _ extremely close _ , but… Black Cat needs Robin to survive, quite literally.” She pointed out.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.” He nodded. “He fixes everything you break, and saves your dumb ass in ways that I can’t.”

“And I love you differently, you know?” She went back to her project. 

“I appreciate that, thank you. I don’t think I want to cause a problematic love triangle.”

“Not originally what I meant, but yeah that’s good too.”

“Oh? What did you originally mean?”

“I mean that both of you make me want to work on making myself a better person But being around D makes me want to work on the things in here-” She tapped her chest, referring to her heart, “-And you make me want to fix the things up here.” She tapped her head. 

“Huh.” He thought about that for a second. “So…” He stopped. 

“I've noticed, when something is wrong with me emotionally, I call him. I call him when I think there’s something wrong with how I feel about myself. When I start to spiral about what other people think of me, I call you. I need you to tell me that I’m loved by people, I need him to tell me I need to love myself. Two very different things.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, realising she was actually right. 

“Damian makes me feel confident. You make me look confident.”

“Damn, that’s deep.”

“It is. And now I’m all out of wise words for the next week, I’ll catch you later if you need any more.” He laughed. 

“I keep forgetting how intelligent you are.”

“Good, it makes other people underestimate me. And then I can get close enough to kick their asses.” He snorted, and choked on a popcorn kernel. She laughed at his choking. 

* * *

_ ‘You know, I suppose I should probably, you know, ACTUALLY take you on a date.’  _ Her phone buzzed in the middle of yet another detention she was in. 

She pulled out her laptop, which she had synced her messaging app to, and pretended to work on a project instead of reading a book. 

Detention was her reading time. 

She had gotten through a lot of books she wouldn;t have made the time to actually sit down and read otherwise. 

It was cathartic, somehow. And made doing detention-worthy things seem less bad, if she didn’t feel as though she was getting punished for it. 

_ ‘Ooh, where are we going?’ _

_ ‘Oh shit. I have to think of something, hold on. Give me a second.’ _

_ ‘Ha! I love you, dumbass.’ _

_ ‘I love you too.’ _ She waited a few minutes, and then asked him if he had any good ideas yet. 

_ ‘Oh. Right. That.’ _

_ ‘What?’ _

_ ‘I forgot to actually look.’ _

_ ‘How the hell did you forget?’ _

_ ‘I was staring at your text that said you loved me.’ _ She had to bite her lip to refrain from laughing, but she still blushed. 

_ ‘How about you bust me out of detention for a date? That would be appreciated.’ _

_ ‘I thought that was your designated reading time?’ _

_ ‘It is, but seeing you is more entertaining.’  _

_ ‘Yeah, yeah, hold on, I’m looking. I have to get a super-cool idea first.’ _

She shook her head, put her laptop back down in her bag, and went back to her book. 

When detention ended, she set her book in her bag and walked out to find Damian walking through the hall.

“Did I miss busting you out?”

“By sheer seconds.” She pouted. 

“Damn.” He tossed her her keys. “Well, ditch the bag, and let’s go.”

“Where?”

“We’re going to-”

“I mean where the hell do I ditch the bag? And where did you get my keys?”

“Locker, bedroom.”

“I have got to find a way to make Bella hate you so she stops letting you in.”

“Your window was unlocked.” He shrugged. 

“Good to know you’re capable of climbing in my bedroom window.”

“Come on, let’s go.”

“Alright, alright, I’m coming, jeez.”

  
  



	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wish I did this for a living because I would be so damn good at my job...

“Ugh, we have to pick classes next week.” Jon followed her through the store, on his phone the whole time.

“Already?” Marinette asked as she felt all the fabrics under her fingers. 

“Yeah, we have to pick them now so they can arrange them for next year.”

“Huh.”

“What do you think you’ll take?”

“I don’t know what I need to take, I’m still not sure what credits transferred over anyway.”

“Oh, right. You’re French.”

“Congratulations, you have figured out the sun is yellow.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve heard from dad on Krypton it was red.”

“Fuck you.” She picked another bolt, and brought the three she wanted to the counter. “Oh, I need a gym credit, though.” She remembered sourly, and asked for a yard and a half of each. 

“Awe, Damian’s gonna be pissed he can’t take it with you.”

“Oh?”

“The girls are allowed to wear spandex, as long as it’s black.”

“Oh yeah, he’ll be mad. For sure.”

“Ten bucks says he hacks into the system and puts himself in your class anyway.”

“I’m not taking you up on that because he probably will.”

* * *

  
  


“Hey.” He called her almost immediately as soon as she got back. 

It was like knowing where she was was his super power. 

“Hi, I just dropped off some supplies and I was planning on eating dinner, what’s up?”

“You want to come over?”

“Sure, any reason?”

“I want to kiss you?”

“Valid argument, I’ll be right over.”

“Nice.”

* * *

“Hey, you didn’t tell me Marinette was coming over.” Barbara said casually as she grabbed a glass of water from the sink. 

“How did you find out?” Damian gave her a strange look.

“I was listening to the police scanner, and apparently a kid dressed in black and driving a hot pink motorcycle is headed this way, speeding like a crazy person, and no one can seem to catch her.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess there’s no hiding it now.”

* * *

  
  


She attempted to sit down on the couch after plugging her switch into the television so they could play together, but he pulled her into his lap. 

“I’m only not moving if you promise not to cheat.”

“It’s, Mariokart, not a test.” He rolled his eyes. 

He found a way. 

“No, stop, you’re distracting me you asshole.” She whined as he kissed the back of her neck without looking away from the tv. 

“No, I’m winning.” He mumbled into her ear. 

“I said I would move if you cheated, now stop cheating because I don’t want to move!”

“I’m not cheating, I promise!”

“Distracting me is considered cheating!” She yelled as she took her spot in first place back. 

“Is it?” He asked flirtatiously, and licked her ear. 

She drove over the edge. 

“Fuck. You.” Her hands were shaking slightly, and she gripped the controller tighter. 

She came back in fifth place. 

“What?” He asked innocently. “What did I do?”

“You know what you did.” She growled, and started to work her way back to first. 

“No, I think you’ll have to elaborate.” He said in a low tone, and she jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. “Ow! Fuck!” He snarled, in quite a lot of pain, and she beat him. 

“Ha! Take that, you fucker!” She jumped up and did a little victory shimmy. 

“Ow… my ribs… ouch… my feelings…” He groaned dramatically and she stuck her tongue out at him. 

“Suck it up you big jerk, that’s what you get for trying to flirt your way into winning.” She snapped, and threw herself down into a chair. 

“No, come back I promise I won’t do it again.”

“You promise?”

“Yeah.”

“Pinky promise?” She challenged. He took a deep breath. 

“Fine. I pinky promise I won’t lick you anymore.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant you won’t try and distract me anymore.” 

“Fine.” He grumbled. “If it makes you come back over here and sit with me.”

* * *

A little while later, Tim challenged her to another game of Rainbow Road. 

She accepted.

“You think you've gotten better, or something?” 

“I got a game myself, been practising.”

“Oh?” Damian gave him his controller, the one with the logos on it, and she stuck with the pink one. 

“Yup.”

“We’ll see how good you’ve gotten, then.” 

She relaxed into Damian's chest, no longer worried about him trying to distract her. 

He would take great joy in watching her kick Tim’s ass. 

He squeezed her a little tighter, as she clicked through everything, sticking with the same kart and statistics. 

Except she changed one while Tim wasn’t looking. 

Damian drummed his fingers on the side of her ribcage. 

“What, are you checking the density of my bones or something?” She teased. 

“Tch, no, I’m playing the drums.” She snorted.

The game started. 

She was grinning at her evil plan falling into place. 

* * *

  
  


_ ‘Does someone want to tell me why Tim is chasing a teenage girl through the house? _ ’ Cass signed, and Jason grinned. 

“He practiced to be able to finally beat her at a video game level and she pulled the ultimate switcheroo and changed the game speed on him so lost anyway.”

“Seriously?” She laughed, and grabbed a juice box. 

“Damian’s gonna be pissed you stole from his juice box collection, Cass.”

_ ‘Tell him I don’t give a flying fuck.’ _

“Oh, gladly.”

“Thanks.” _ ‘So who’s the girl? _ ’

“Her name is Marinette, she’s Damian’s girlfriend, no he won’t tell us how long they’ve been together, she goes by Black Cat, and get this.” He also grabbed one of Damin’s juice boxes, “She has magic powers that give her the ability to destroy anything she touches and it’s  _ super cool _ .” 

‘Awesome. The mean one has the destruction girl. We’re all dead.’

“Nah, that’s not even the best part. Apparently, she’s some guardian of some ancient magic that grants random people magic and you will  _ never guess _ what she did.”

“No.” Cass made a sour face. 

“She gave him the power of creation, and he had the ability to heal and fix things.”

_ ‘Damian? Has magic powers now?’ _

“Yup.”

_ ‘This is awful. The absolute worst.’ _

“You said it, sister.” He nodded, and walked out. Cass snorted at him, and went to look for whatever it was she had come in for. 

* * *

“Ooh.” Marinette was going through Damians clothes, looking to see if there was anything worth stealing, when she found a pair of RayBans buried under some shirts. 

What they were doing there, she had no idea. 

But sunglasses were sexy as hell. 

She threw them onto her face, and ran to look in the mirror in the corner of his room. 

She posed dramatically, and started to dance in the mirror slightly. Then she started dancing a lot, moving away from the mirror, and shimmying around the room as she listened to imaginary music. 

* * *

He stared at her as she wiggled around his room, shaking her hips and doing a half-assed kick every once in a while. 

He thought about the person she was when he first met her, almost six months ago. 

A shy angry mess who didn’t talk to anyone and much less liked them. 

She had only ever  _ begrudgingly _ talked to him. 

But now here she was, his beautiful girlfriend, dancing around his room in a pair of old shorts and humming the words to ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’. Knowing she was pretty and not giving a single fuck.

“Hey!” She gave him finger guns and posed dramatically. He snorted. “Now all I need is a feather boa and the look is complete.”

“The look?” He questioned, raising an eyebrow at her. “What look? Wearing old shorts with holes in them with a too-small tank top and sunglasses is considered  _ a look _ ?”

“Hey fuck you.” She grinned. “I look sexy as hell in these glasses.”

“You do.” He agreed. “You would look sexy as hell in anything, honestly.”

“Thanks.” She did her finger guns again. 

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let's go see about that boa. I’m sure there’s one around here somewhere.”

“Oh hell yeah.” She jumped on his back as he turned to walk out the door.

“I bet Grayson’s hiding one somewhere. That seems like a Grayson thing to do.”

* * *

“Oh my god.” Babs laughed at them as they ran past her in the hallway. “You two look ridiculous.”

“Thank you!” Marinette grinned at her. “That was the goal!”

They found a particularly large mirror, and Marinette took plenty of awful mirror selfies as they posed dramatically, both wearing ridiculously huge feather boas and sunglasses. 

“We look fucking fabulous.”

“That we do, babe.”

“Seriously? I thought you said you hated nicknames? What’s up with that?” She laughed at him, although confusedly.

“I decided I’m making an exception.” He nodded, and pressed a kiss to the side of her face. 

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously  _ fabulous _ in this get-up.”

“Mh.” She agreed, snapping one more picture as he threw his arms into the air. 

God, she loved this dumbass.

  
  



	39. Chapter 39

Her birthday was coming up. 

And she had no idea what to do. 

It was on a saturday, so she had the whole day to do something, she didn’t know what she wanted to do.

It was her first birthday celebrating without her family, but also the first one with her friends.

“Hey, hypothetically speaking, if I were to ask you to plan a birthday, what would you do?” She asked Jon, who was yet again eating snacks and doing his homework in room 223 while she worked.

“Depends who it’s for.” He shrugged.

“Elaborate.” She demanded. 

“D loves animals, I’d probably take him to the zoo, but you, I’d probably take to birthday dinner, why?”

“It’s my birthday next week and I don’t know what’s interesting around here.”

“Oh, well in that case, we can go to the aquarium or something.” 

“Huh. Fun.”

“Yeah, I’d think so.”

* * *

Black Cat skipped across the rooftops as she told Superman her story of how she took down Hawkmoth. 

“So, after the Startrain incident, I realised he only had control over the Akuma for a certain distance, right?”

“Right.”

“So I started drawing Akuma’s out farther and farther away from him, and we can tell when he’s connected to them because when he tries to talk to them they get a little glowing mask around their face. And then when they got far away, he would tell them to come back, but it would flicker, and if they kept following it would go out.”

“Yeah?”

“So I would drag them out as far as possible, make them follow me, and when they got told to come back, I would mark it on a map. Then go in the complete opposite direction the next time, so I had a diameter. And then I did it a few more times, and found a big mansion directly in the center. And that was the guy.”

“Huh. I’ll have to keep that tactic in mind when fighting mind-control villains.”

“Thanks!”

“How did we get on this topic again?”

“You asked me about school and training and I said I didn’t have training and then we somehow got here.”

“Huh.”

A few moments later, Batman and Robin showed up. 

“Hey guys, Black Cat was just telling me a fabulous technique for fighting an extremely specific type of villain. It’s a fabulous technique.”

* * *

“Of course it is. I won, didn’t I?” He forgot she fought crime before knowing him sometimes. 

She became Black Cat not long before he had become the new Robin that he was, it was easy to forget they didn’t start out together. 

Mostly, he forgot she had a nemesis. 

And the thought of someone attacking her  _ every _ day made him pissed. 

He wished he had been there to help her. 

So she didn’t have to fight someone more experienced than her alone. 

So she hadn’t had to go through everything alone. 

But he was here now. 

He was helping out of the bad now, and that was what mattered. 

He just wished there had been less bad to begin with. 

Ne noticed something out to their left, and then realised it was Lois smirking like she just won a bet. 

He wondered what she won. 

Or if she even had yet. 

* * *

Jon was walking down the street when he saw a newspaper picture that caught his eyes. 

A picture of Robin standing next to Batman and facing Black Cat, who was quite clearly standing next to Superman. 

It looked like they were almost having a two-on-two fight. 

The title was what made him laugh. 

**‘Batman and Robin Face Off With Superman and Black Cat. Kryptonian Clone Has New Ward?** ’

“Oh, that’s funny.” He grabbed a copy, and noticed the name. 

It was written by his mother.

She knew exactly what the situation was, and she wrote this.

He laughed even harder, and grabbed another copy. 

He paid for them, and walked the rest of the way to school. 

He hadn't walked from his house, but he had wanted to stop for breakfast and grabbed a coffee for Damian and a hot chocolate for Marinette and donuts for both of them. 

And now, two newspapers. To make fun of them with.

* * *

“Have you seen the newspapers this morning, Master Bruce?” Alfred asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. 

“No, Alfred, I haven’t, why?” He wondered which of his kids were in trouble today. 

“It appears as though Batman and Superman may be having tension again.” Bruce sighed, and opened the news app on his phone. 

_ Lois you fucking genious _ .

* * *

“Hey, Jon! Did you see we got out next year's schedules today, and-” Marinette got cut off by Jon slamming a newspaper down on the table. “Huh?” She took a closer look.

“Hm. So that’s what she wanted that picture for.” Damian eyed the paper, and then went back to his phone. “Oh, would you look at that, they accidently put me in another gym class two years in a row.”

“Bull _ shit _ it’s an accident.” Marinette rolled her eyes. 

“So. What does everyone think of the paper today?”

“I think that Robin kid looks pretty pissed with that Black Cat character.” Damian offered. 

“Oh? And why would that be?” Jon asked as he sat down. 

“Maybe she left something of hers somewhere, and he had to go get it for her and he’s mad about it?” Marinette tried. 

“Huh.” Jon tried to fight a snicker. 

“What are you talking about?” Bella asked as she sat down. 

“Bella, what do you think the ship name for Robin and Black Cat will be?” Jon asked her.

“Ship name?”

“Yeah. The ship name.” Damian pressed her.

“Why would anyone ship them, they clearly hate each other here.”

“Maybe it’s just deep-rooted sexual tension.” Marinette shrugged, seemingly uncaringly. 

“Sexual tension?” Damian frowned at her, completely able to hide his amusement. 

“Yeah, there’s quite clearly unresolved sexual tension in this picture.” She gestured lazily, and went back to her phone. 

“I mean, I guess I could see it.” Bella shrugged. 

“Yeah, M’s right.” Jon nodded. “So, the ship name. What is it?”

“I don’t know. I got nothing.” Bella opened the link Marinette sent her to find their new classes. 

* * *

Jon walked into his homeroom, and grabbed a marker to write on the whiteboard, 

_ Robin x Black Cat ship name votes: _

_BlackRobin_ _RobinCat_ _CatBird_

l

“Any other options someone can think of?” He asked the class. The rest of them jumped up to give their opinions. 

By the end of the day, RobinCat was in the lead. 

  
  


* * *

On her way to period one, she overheard Damian talking to someone in the hallway,

“And then the guidance counselor was like  _ ‘you already have a gym credit’ _ to which I responded  _ ‘bold of you to assume that will stop me from seeing my girlfriends ass in those shorts’ _ And to say the guidance counselor was  _ not _ happy wi-”

“Damian!” She threw an eraser at his head. He let it hit him, he deserved it.

“Oops.” He turned to give her an apologetic shrug. “But I’m not sorry for wanting to admire your fabulous butt.” She blushed furiously, both mad and embarrassed. 

But mostly embarrassed.

* * *

In Chemistry, he bonked one of his knees into hers. 

“Sorry if I made you mad.” He whispered. 

“More embarrassed than mad.” She shrugged. 

“Do you not want me talking about how sexy your ass is?” She snorted. 

“Not really, but I guess it’s fine.”

“Nah, it’s clearly not fine. I won’t do it anymore, I promise.”

“Thanks.” She tried not to smile, and scooted her chair closer to him. 

Well, as ‘closer’ as she could get being practically squished into him already. 

* * *

“Lois, did you seriously write a piece about Black Cat being my kid?”

“I told you if you weren’t careful someone would make that assumption.” She smiled as she shrugged. 

“Mum I swear to god-”

* * *

“So, I heard a rumor.” Robin smirked at Black Cat as she landed on a roof near him. 

“And since when did you believe rumors?”

“Since they entertained me.” He jumped off the AC box he had been sitting on, and grabbed her around the waist. 

“Oh? And might it have been about?”

“Apparently, some students at GA saw a picture in the news, and one of them…” He broke off his own sentence to give her a kiss, and went right back to where he had been, “Thinks that Robin and Black Cat have some ‘unresolved sexual tension’ I believe she said.”

“Oh, did she?” She lazily draped her arms over his shoulders, looking up at him as he moved her backwards. 

“I was thinking we could… resolve it. If it were even there, I mean.”

“Slight problem with that.” She hated having to tell him no, she really did, but she had to. 

“Oh?”

“There may be a few…  _ steps _ I have to take before we can do that.”

“And how fast can that be done?”

“I’m not…” She lowered her voice, and spoke through her gritted teeth, “I’m not on anything.” He frowned. 

“Well  _ shit. _ ”

“Yeah. Shit.”

“Well, when you take care of that, then can we resolve this?”

“Yeah. We can resolve anything.”

“How lovely.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“You better see me inbetween then, too.”

“I think I have to, we see each other every day.”

“True. But I want kisses.”

“You can have them!” She insisted. “You can have all of them! But that’s all you can have.”

“If it’s all I can have, I’m taking as many as possible.”

“Go for it.”

“Gladly.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /\  
> / . . . \  
> / . . . . . \  
> / . . . .. \  
> /___________\  
> l l  
> l in this house l  
> l we practise l  
> l safe sex. l  
> l l  
> l_____________ l
> 
> Did it work? Did it make a little house?
> 
> FUCK it didn't work. 
> 
> Maybe if I put some dots as shingles they'll work.
> 
> Damnnit it didn't work. 
> 
> Well, just *pretend* it makes a house.


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everyone’s arguing about if her birthday spring or fall but fuck it I’m saying its the middle of march.

She practically bounced into the aquarium on her birthday, excited to see all the fish. 

She had a little backpack with some supplies in it, like a small emergency notebook just in case, but also having a phone charger, a water bottle, and some chapstick. As well as a few other things. 

Damian was holding onto one of her backpack straps, trying to grab her hand, not because he wanted to be cute and hold her hand but because he was desperate not to lose her. 

Jon was laughing at them. 

Steph was playing Adult Supervision. 

“Look! A touch tank!” She wiggled in excitement, and ran up to the edge. It was full of Dog Sharks, and she cooed over them as she gently patted their heads. 

“Who knew trying to go somewhere would be worse than trying to watch a three year old.” Damian grumbled, putting an arm around her waist. 

“Tiny  _ requin _ , Damian!” She whispered in response. “So tiny! So small!”

“Ok, that was  _ so  _ adorable that you are _ immediately  _ forgiven.” He chuckled. 

“Such tiny. Very mini.” She wiggled, and kept petting the sharks. 

“Hey M, there’s another tank, it’s got manta rays in it.” Jon pointed out, and she gasped with excitement, saying goodbye to the sharks very politely before moving on to the manta rays. 

“Good morning Mr. Sea Pancake.” She spoke in Tiny, and he tried not to blush as she gave the sea pancake a pat on the head. 

“I literally love you so much.” Damian stared at her as she smiled at the touch tank creatures. She giggled, and blushed. 

“Thanks.” After she was satisfied that she had given them all equal amounts of pats, she moved on to look at the nearby fish tanks. 

“Look, these ones are pretty neat.” Jon found an exotic fish he liked. 

“Mh.” Marinette agreed as she gazed up at them. “So colorful.” 

“Just like your language.” Jon said cheerfully, and she snorted as she whacked his arm. 

“Ah, fuck I forgot doing that hurts.” She grumbled, and tried not to rub her wrist  _ too _ much.

“Then stop whacking me.”

“No.”

* * *

One of the exhibits was a tunnel made of glass they could walk under, and it had huge Great White sharks in it. 

Marinette was attempting to walk and look up at the same time, and only took three steps before she tripped. 

“Oh jesus- I look away from you for two seconds and you fall on your face.” Damian pulled her to her feet, and gently grabbed her face, checking her for damage. 

“I’m fine,  _ chouchou _ , let me go.” She rolled her eyes. 

“You did not seriously call me a cabbage.” He said it in an offended tone, but his eyes lit up with delight. 

“Yeah, I did. I’m throwing your no-nicknames rule out the window and calling you chouchou now.”

“That’s…”

“Oh please call him cabbage, that is honestly the most entertaining thing I have heard in so long.” Steph grinned evilly, preparing to tell the family group chat she called him cabbage in the form of  _ chouchou _ . 

“I was already planning on it.” She nodded in assurance.

* * *

They walked through a few more exhibits, her marveling over octopuses and getting extremely disappointed none of the sea horses were visible, before they found a sign for a sea lion show. 

She gasped, 

“ _Chouchou,_ can we go?” She asked with big puppy eyes. 

“It’s your birthday M, we can do whatever you want.” Jon pointed out, and she dragged them both in behind her. Stephanie tried her best to keep up. Her old Robin Senses only got her so far. 

Marinette sat between her two friends, and Steph sat on the other side of Damian. 

She tried not to gasp at everything, the sea lions were  _ just too cute _ , and she wiggled in her seat in excitement every time they did something interesting. Which was a lot. 

“Are you ok?” Damian raised an eyebrow at her. 

“I’m fighting the urge to run down there and cuddle those sea lions.” She grumbled, and leaned on him. 

“Well cuddle me instead.”

“Yes sir.”

When the show ended, she made everyone wait before leaving, pulled out her phone, and took a picture of all four of them. 

“Ok, now we can go.” She nodded, and took off. 

* * *

A few more exhibits of Marinette admiring the fish, Damian admiring Marinette, Jon also actually looking at the fish and Steph trying to make sure she didn’t lose any of them even though they seemed to be going in every direction at once, and then they finally left. 

“Wait, before we go.” He pulled out his phone, and took a cute serious but happy selfie of just the two of them in front of a big fish. 

Then a cute one where he winked and stuck his tongue out, and she giggled at him. 

* * *

She went out to dinner with Bella that night, she bought them both Olive Garden. 

And then Dominoes when they got back to the dorm. 

And then breadsticks from Pizza hut because they split a small between them form Dominoes and it still wasn’t enough. 

“You need to have your birthday more often.” Bella tried. 

“Sorry, I was only born once.” She shrugged apologetically, and they laughed. 

* * *

The next day at school, Damian seemed to have lost his phone. 

“M baby, would you call it, please?” He frowned as he looked around.

She called it, and heard it go off in the back of the classroom. 

“Oh! I found it!” She grabbed it, and noticed the name she had been set as. 

_ Ma Mie _ and a bread emoji. 

“Seriously? A baking joke?” She tried to hide a smile as she handed it back to him. 

“So I guess you’re over the whole no-nicknames thing, then, M?” Jon asked, a little confused. 

_ Ma Mie  _ roughly translated ‘My Little Fluffy Bread’. 

“Yeah, mostly. I just… don’t want anyone accidently using an old nickname.”

“Well, maybe you can make me a list and I’ll just not use those ones.”

“Yeah, but then you’ll get them in your head and the chances of you using them, even by accident, will increase.”

“Oh, true.” he agreed.

“But I’ll tell you my absolute least favorite is Princess. Don’t ever, under any circumstances, call me that.”

“Noted. You’re more of a badass Queen anyway.” Jon nodded in understanding. 

“Can we go back to you calling me fluffy bread?” She turned to the other side of her, and handed him his phone back. 

“No we cannot, class is about to start.”

“And that’s stopped us before how?”

“True, but today, we don’t talk about fluffy bread.”

“Dang.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ma Mie: Affectionately calling someone the fluffy part of bread. 
> 
> Chouchou: Cute term for cabbage. 
> 
> Requin: Shark.


	41. Chapter 41

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I won't be able to post much today I have to help my grandmother pick out some new cabinets. 
> 
> Weirdest excuse, I know, but its the truth.

_ Dammit, not again. _

_ Not. _

**_Fucking_ ** _.  _

_ AGAIN! _

Marinette thought as her feet dangled over the floor.

After the last kidnap attempt, she had taken the ring off of the chain, and stuck it to her finger. 

She had dug around the guardian book, and found a spall that made it so only she could take the ring off of herself. She did the same thing to Damian. 

That was turning out to be useful after she took a lead pipe to the back of the head. 

Her arms were pinned to her sides, and she was wrapped completely in chains. 

_ Seriously? What is with you people and chains? _

She blinked a few times, and looked around. 

Some sort of secret lab or something, and a damp and musty one at the look of that. 

High ceilings, maybe thirty or so feet, and she was about four feet off the floor. 

Green glowing tanks about the room that seemed to be for nothing other than aesthetic. 

She heard footsteps coming down the hall. 

A big door whoosh’d open, and someone appeared. 

A tall hunched-over man with long dark and pale skin that looked like he hadn’t showered in weeks. 

Normally, she would take the time to make some smart-ass comment while looking for a way to escape. 

But not today. 

Because he was dragging Robin in by his ankle, so she didn’t bother. 

She didn’t bother with an angry ‘who are you’, he would just give her a strange look, or maybe chuckle a bit and make some mean comment about how he was gonna kill her so it didn’t matter anyway. 

She didn’t ask him what he wanted, he would probably just ignore her, instead of going on some dramatic speech about his elaborate plan. 

She just said, in the angriest tone, 

“Let go of him.”

The man looked over at her curiously, and dropped the black and red boot. He walked over to a table and started on a project. 

_ Good, it’s not green. If it were green boots, Tikki would be out of energy and we can’t have that right now. _

She could easily use a cataclysm to get out of here. 

But that required energy, and she didn’t know how much she had left. 

“So she cares for the boy.” He said to the thing he was working on. 

_ Oh god he’s a freak. _

“We can use this you know.”

_ No, please don’t, I don’t wanna have to break us both out of here while he’s down and out. _

“Make her crack open about the energy.”

“Energy?” She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. 

He ignored her, and kept talking to his tools. 

Maybe he meant the power source for her powers. 

_ Oh, you mean Plagg? You don’t want that idiot, he smells of cheese. _

**I AM NOT AN IDIOT**

_ Shit Plagg you can hear my thoughts? _

**MAYBE**

_ How long have you been able to do that? _

**SINCE FOREVER? I DON’T KNOW.**

_ Well damn _ . 

He started to move a lab table, and brought it over in front of her.

She got a sick feeling. 

_ Maybe I should bust us out sooner than later…  _

**YOU THINK?**

_ Hey, I’m trying to figure out his Evil Plan here man, ok? _

**FIGURE IT OUT FASTER, THE BUGS KID IS IN TROUBLE.**

_ Wait, what? Trouble how? _

**I DON’T KNOW BUT THAT TABLE DOESN’T LOOK GOOD** .

The freak scientist, if he even was that, walked back over to Robin. 

_ No. No no no no no no no no- _

He picked him up again, and she felt her hands start to shake under the chain that was holding her up. 

Her mind started to race.

She fought with herself internally about what to do. 

Bust out, take him, and run, or try and figure out what he wants but have no idea what the hell he’s about to do to Robin. 

But as the man grabbed a few tools, brought them over to the lab table, and her panic got the better of her. 

Her whole body started to shake, but the man didn’t notice. 

He grabbed a knife, and that was game over for her. 

She didn’t notice her skin start to crackle with black lighting, and when she snapped, she snapped hard. 

The room seemed to explode around her, but then she realised that it was just where she stood that exploded. 

The chains flew in all different directions as she dropped to the floor. 

She hit the ground with a thud, and the rattling slowly came to a stop as she ran to her partner. 

Maybe it was magic, or maybe it was love, or perhaps a combination of both, but as the dust settled from her mass destruction, Robin came out of it unscathed. 

The scientist man, however, was not so well off. 

He had managed to somehow stab himself in the sudden force and was probably very dead. 

Robin started to make a sour face as he slowly came to.

“Hey. Hey it’s ok. Something really bad happened, and then something else happened, but it’s gone now. It’s gone, ok?” She said shakily as she picked him up. 

Sure, he was much bigger than she was, but hey. 

She had super strength. 

Carrying him was no big deal.

“We’re ok?” He asked, mumbling into her shoulder. 

“We’re perfectly fine, _ mon bijou, _ I got you.” She wanted to call him Chouchou, but didn’t want anyone making the connection just in case.

She looked back at the door he had dragged him in through. 

There seemed to be no other way out. 

She gave it a try. 

* * *

She found her way out, and carried him all the way back to the batcave. 

“Hey, where did you two- oh shit.” Jason realised there was a problem, and cut himself off from teasing them about disapearig. 

“Got whacked, that’s where we went.” She grumbled, and sank to the floor, still holding on to him. 

“Got whacked?” Dick frowned, and Jason tried to pick up Robin out of her arms. 

“No, please, I don’t want to let go.” She started to cry. 

“Cat, I have to check and make sure he’s all fine.” Jason said in the calmest voice possible. She knew he was right, but she really didn’t want to let go. 

She bit her lip, and let him take him from her. 

“Can we go back to the whacked part please?” Dick reminded them. 

“Well  _ I  _ got whacked, but I have no idea what happened to him.” 

“Huh?”

“Back of the head, someone got me. And then I woke up in a lab somewhere. And…” She crawled to her feet, de-transformed, and sat down in a chair, pulling her knees to her chest. “And I was alone. And then some guy walked in, acting all creepy, and he was dragging him in behind him, and… and then he grabbed a knife I don’t remember much other than the fact that I  _ literally _ exploded and got us the hell out of there.”

“You… exploded?”

“I think.”

“You  _ think  _ you exploded?” Jason looked around the wall to give her a funny look. 

“Look man, I was panicking, and one second I’m dangling from the ceiling and the next thing I know there's a loud boom and I'm standing on the floor, I don’t really-” She took a shaky breath, and her hands started shaking again. “This…” She flexed her wrist, meaning her hand, “This was happening. And then I shook some more… and then I went boom.”

“And then you went boom?” He repeated. 

“Can we… Can we talk about something else?”

There was a long silent pause, save for whatever machine Jason was messing with. 

“Yeah, what do you remember from right before?”

“We were looking into something. I thought I heard two people talking about something that I wanted to know more about, and then I got hit. That’s really it.”

“Hm.” He checked in on Damian, and she took a few deep breaths to try and calm down. 

_ Why did I explode? _

_ Was the even considered an explosion? _

_ I mean sure, there was a loud boom, but what the hell? _

“M?” Robin yelled from around the corner. 

“Yeah?” She offered back weakly. 

“Come here?”

“Ok.” She shakily stood up, and went to go find him. 

She found him sitting on the edge of a counter, and not wearing a shirt.

She so very much wished she was in a mental space to enjoy the lack of shirt. 

But alas, she was not. 

“You ok?”

“I’m the one who pulled you out of that place, and you ask me if I’m ok? You’re the one who’s worse off than I am.”

“I heard a boom, I wanted to make sure you didn’t get hit with anything.” He pulled her into a hug as he jumped off the counter, and leaned back against it.

“I really don’t know how to explain to you that  _ I was _ the boom.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“You… can’t elaborate?”

“Nope.”

“Well alright then.”

  
  



	42. Chapter 42

_ ‘What are you doing right now?’  _ He texted Marinette a few days later. 

_ ‘Got stressed, working on a painting.’ _ She answered. 

_ ‘Really?’ _

_ ‘You didn’t know that that’s what I do when I get mad?’ _

_ ‘You don’t work on your sewing stuff?’ _

_ ‘I don’t want to associate working with being mad, so I paint.’ _

_ ‘Huh.’ _ Damian hadn’t known that. Why hadn’t he known that?

_ ‘I used to hate my paintings because they were all dark and angry but now I’m actually pretty good at an outlet and feeling better by painting dramatic flowers.’ _

_ ‘Maybe you can paint me a flower some time.’ _

_ ‘Maybe :)’ _ There were a few minutes where neither of them said anything.  _ ‘Hey, remember when I said that skill of you climbing in through my window might be good?’ _

_ ‘Yeah?’ _

_ ‘Bella’s going to a birthday party again. She’s not coming back tonight, she brought her school stuff with her.’ _

_ ‘Do I get to use my super-awesome climbing skills?’ _

_ ‘I don’t know, do you?’ _ He grinned at his phone, and started to grab his backpack. 

* * *

“Sneaking out, are we, Master Damian?” Alfred asked as he sipped some tea in a chair by the foyer. 

“Yes.” He answered, and reached for the doorknob. “Yes I am.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.” Alfred offered. 

“I’ll try.”

* * *

She honestly didn’t seriously expect him to, but this was Damian, so who the hell knew. 

He knocked on her fifth-floor window as she was scrolling on her phone on her bed in pink spandex and an old tank top. 

“You really  _ can _ climb the side of the building, huh?”

“Hey. I’m Boy Wonder, I can do whatever I want to.” He grinned as he jumped from where he was crouching on the sill to the floor. 

“Yeah. Sure.” She smirked, and then pulled him towards her by his shirt. 

Since her bed was originally meant to be a bunk bed, it was actually quite high off the ground, and she had a lot of storage under it. 

She jumped up on it, and sitting so high up they were almost even. 

She was now only just barely shorter than him. 

She balled up his shirt in her fists as she kissed him, her hands pressing up against either side of his waist, and he put his hands under her chin, tilting her head up towards him. 

“So.” He broke it off after a few minutes to ask, “Do anything more about that slight problem?”

“First, yes, I started solving that two days ago, but second, thin walls, I can hear the kids next door argue all the time, and third, even if _not_ thin walls, I still think I need to wait a few days, to, you know. Take effect.” She didn’t want to talk, she _wanted_ to be kissing her boyfriend, but she knew this conversation was important. 

“A few more days?”

“Yeah.”

“And then we’re good?”

“Depends, you good on your end?” He realised what she was talking about, and scowled. 

“I’ll… find a way. To get some.”

“By… Friday?” She asked, hopefully.

“You want to come over Friday?”

“Yeah, I’ll come over Friday.” She decided the conversation was over, and pulled him back closer to her again. They went back to what they had been doing before he had interrupted them. 

* * *

“Ugh, my hair is so stiff, I need to take a shower.” She grumbled, and sat up from where she was buried in a pile of blankets with her switch. 

They had been playing Mario Kart. Again. 

She was getting obsessed with that game.

“I’d ask to join, but I would be way too tempted to do terribly sinful things.”

“Oh?” She smirked and started to pull her shirt off.

“Get the fuck out of here before we do someting we both regret.” He warned her teasingly. 

“Fine, fine, I’m going.” She laughed, and grabbed her clothes from a bucket. “I’ll stop building up the tension we have going.”

“Oh shut the fuck up.”

“Not if it kills you, no.” She cackled, and went off to take a shower. 

* * *

He usually slept in a thick shirt, he was very cold at night, but whenever Marinette was around, he didn’t need to. 

She was like a little heat generator, and always insisted on sleeping close to him. Sometimes she used him like a pillow, sleeping on top of him. 

He didn’t mind. 

She ran her fingers over his stomach, tracing his muscles with her fingertips. 

“Feel something you like?” he teased. 

“I’d like it even more if you weren’t wearing the shirt.”

“That can be arranged.”

* * *

“I wonder what the papers would do for a picture like this.” Marinette screamed at the sudden sound, and rolled to fall out of her bed without meaning to. Damian caught her without hardly having to move. “Rockstar’s famous niece clinging to a shirtless Wayne. Priceless.”

“Fuck you Bella.” She grumbled as she rolled back over to hug her boyfriend. “What are you even doing back so early?”

“Ok one, breakfast is in five minutes, you might want to start busting your ass if you don’t want to miss out, two, I left a notebook here." She paused, and then added, "Three, petition for Damian to never wear a shirt ever again.”

“I’ll sign that petition.” Marinette grunted as she sat up to grab her uniform. “Where is it?”

“Hold on, let me write one up.”

“Don’t you dare, I'm cold as hell already.”

“Sorry,  _ Chouchou _ . The sacrifices we make for the people we love.” She shook her head as she took off her shirt to put on a different one. 

* * *

He hadn’t seen _ that  _ last night.

No, he somehow managed to miss the five giant matching scars on her back. 

But she put her uniform shirt on, and he didn’t want to ask. 

Well, he  _ did _ want to ask, but he didn’t want to do it right then. 

She was tired and would be pissed at him for the rest of the day and he didn’t want that to happen. 

So he just grabbed his backpack, and put on his own uniform, letting it go. For now. 

* * *

But he couldn’t get it out of his head. 

He figured he knew where it came from after a bit of thinking.

Five matching scars. 

Five fingers on the average human hand.

Her Black Cat gloves had claws on them.

He figured Agreste had claws too. 

It was everything he could do not to fly to Paris and kill the blond asshole. 

She had told him about all the mind games he had played with her.

Trying to trick her into being the perfect person for him. 

But she hadn’t told him about that. 

She hadn’t said anything about him really physically hurting her.

But now that he thought about it, she did seem to have alluded to it.

He had assumed when she had referenced it that she was meaning emotionally hurting. 

Not physically hurting. 

Apparently, that had happened to.

“You ok?” She asked him as he stared at the table at lunch.

“Yeah.” He lied. 

“Liar.” Jon said with a mouthful of cake. They were serving a special cake today. He didn’t take any. 

“Seriously? I really don’t want to have this conversation right now.” He grumbled, and ran his hands through his hair as a distraction. “I’ll… I’ll be right back.” 

* * *

She frowned at her plate, trying to figure out what she had done wrong. 

He wouldn’t look at her all day.

He had actually been staring at her, but every time she looked over at him, he looked elsewhere. 

“What did I do?” She mumbled. 

“Are you sure it’s you?” Jon asked her. 

“Pretty sure.” She nodded. 

“Ok, then, go over your morning again, and I’ll tell you if you said something that would offend him without meaning to.”

“I woke up to Bella making some smart comment about how he came over last night and something about what papers wouldn’t do for that picture, and then I fell off the bed but he caught me, and then she made a joke about making a petition for him to never wear a shirt again and I said I would sign it and then I got up and then I put a new clean shirt on and then he-” She stopped. “Wait, I think I know what I did.” She whispered.

“Huh?”

“I… it’s what I didn’t do. A while ago.”

“I don’t get it.” He gave her a confused look. 

“I know, and I love you for that, but can you tell me where he went? I… I have to fix this.” Jon chewed on his lip for a second, wondering if he really should, but told her which bathroom he ran off to.

She took off to find him. 

* * *

He sat on the floor, and put his head in between his knees. 

_ So this is what a panic attack feels like. _

“Tikki?” He asked, and the red bug appeared. 

“You found out what happened?”

“No, but I saw the after effects.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you.” She looked guilty, but he didn’t blame her. 

He took a shaky breath, and heard a frantic set of footsteps. 

A shadow stopped in front of the door.

“Damian?” A soft voice called out. 

Marinette. 

His lovely amazing beautiful girlfriend. 

“Yeah?” He wanted to ignore her. 

He really did. 

But his emotions bested him and called out for her. 

“Either you get out here or I’m going in there.” He could hear the caring in her demanding tone. 

“It’s locked.”

“Well then I’m sending in Plagg.” She threatened.

“Fine.” He stood up, and gave her a sad look as he opened the door. 

She pulled him out of the door, and wrapped him up in a hug. 

He had to chew on the inside of his cheek not to start crying. 

“Hey.” She looked up at him. “Can we talk about this?”

He didn’t really want to but at the same time he did. 

It was driving him crazy. 

He just wanted to tell her he loved her and get it over with. 

And also to kill Agreste. 

He wanted to do that too. 

“I love you. You know that, right?” He said into the top of her head. 

“I do, ok? I know that. And we do have to talk about what happened to me eventually, I haven’t told you the whole story, but… I know.”

“It’s like… I want to ask you, but at the same time I don’t want to make you tell me. I don’t want to have to watch you go through it all over again.”

“Funny, because _you’re_ the one crying right now.” She pointed out. 

“I am.” He nodded, and she pulled back away from him a little bit. 

“We can talk about this at the end of the day, ok?”

“Ok.” 

  
  



	43. Chapter 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just reminding everyone I put in the tags there there is no actual 'smut' whatever the hell that means, but I *did* wrote some of the taunting and teasing right before the 'smut' (I seriously have no idea where that word came from that's why I'm putting it in quotes) so even of it seems like it's about to be that, I promise I "cut to commercial" like five seconds before.  
> I PROMISE.

Like she promised, she was sitting in his car when he opened the drivers side door at the end of the day. It was still there from where he had parked it the day before. 

“So, you saw.”

“Yeah.” He breathed, nodding slightly. “I saw.”

“And for some reason this is more uncomfortable for you than me  _ why _ ?” It was her body, she wondered why it stressed him out so much. It wasn’t like it was something he had to live with. 

She had been thinking about that fun fact all day.

She had drawn all sorts of awful conclusions. 

“Because I can’t fucking stand the idea of someone wanting to hurt you.” He gave her a very stressed look. “I hate the thought that something happened to you and I couldn’t stop it. I can’t change what happened. I…” He took a deep breath, “I hate the idea there’s something _ I can’t help with _ . That it’s something you have to suffer through alone and I can’t  _ do  _ anything about it.” She blinked. “And it scares me that maybe something could happen to you again, and I won’t be able to stop it.” That was not the answer she had been prepared for. 

She had been worried he was going to go on some possessive rant about how dare someone else have hurt something of his, even though it was before they met. 

She was afraid he would be mad at her for hiding it. 

She wasn’t prepared for him to be concerned. 

She stared at him blankly for a second before reacting. 

* * *

He was not prepared for her to laugh at him. 

He had just told her a bunch of deep emotional stuff, and she laughed at him. 

Why the hell was she laughing at him?

This was a serious conversation!

“Oh my god you scared me.” She smiled softly as she climbed over the center console to sit in his lap. 

“What are you laughing for? Why did I scare you?” He asked, confused and upset.

“Damian, I thought you were mad at me.” She confessed. 

“No!” He was horrified she thought he had been mad at her. There were very few things in this world that could make him mad at her, and he highly doubted she would ever do any of them. “I would never be mad at you!”

“Ok first of all, never say never, second… You really care about me?”

“Yes!” He insisted, pulling her closer to him despite them being barely apart to begin with, “You are literally my girlfriend, as well as my best friend, I care more about you than… well, basically, everything." Jon did not count. "Why the hell would I be mad at you?”

“Because…” She made a face, and put her head on his shoulder. “I was worried you would be mad in a possessive way, like, mad for your own sake instead of for mine.” She shrugged. He gave her a strange look even though she wasn’t looking at him. “I guess I’m still worried, deep down, you’re gonna pull some shit like he did.”

“That is  _ offensive. _ ” He tried not to shriek, “ _ Offensive  _ that you think I would break such a promise.”

“Promise?”

“Last November, remember? You came over to pet my dogs and I said whatever he did to you I would _never_ do.”

“Oh.” She gave a small smile and looked up at him. “Glad we figured this out before Friday, I would have been _pissed_ if this became a mood killer.”

“Really? That’s what you have to say about that?”

“Have I told you how much I love you recently?”

“No, and do it again.” He gave her a small smile back. 

“Ok.” She went to be all cute and pull him down by his tie when the backdoor opened, and she bumped her head against the glass window as she jumped. 

“You idiots know this  _ isn’t _ the car with tinted windows, right?” Jon said sarcastically. They both turned to glare at him. He was completely unbothered. “M, get out of the driver's seat, he can’t  _ legally _ drive with you in the way.”

“I’ve also illegally driven a school bus, Jon, I don’t really care about rules and you-”

“The police do not give one flying fuck if you’re Bruce Wayne’s son, they will arrest you for being an idiot and you know it, now get a move on.” 

He got to the edge of the parking lot before Marinette realised, 

“Hey, since when did we have plans together?” 

“Since I wanted a milkshake.”

“You have a truck at the school, you couldn’t drive yourself to get a milkshake? You  _ had _ to interrupt our lovely bonding moment?” Damian rolled his eyes. 

“No, what I  _ had _ to do was save you two dumbasses from fucking in the parking lot in front of half the student body, and  _ just so happened _ to be craving a chocy shake at the same time.” Jon rolled his eyes. 

“You seriously-”

“Yes, M, I  _ so _ very seriously.” He deadpanned. They shut up after that. 

* * *

  
  


On Friday, he apologized profusely for having to go to a meeting for a charity project he was running pretty late in the day, and she pouted at first, but then just showed up at his house even though he wasn’t there. 

She plugged her switch into the TV in his room, and played Mario Kart while she waited for him. He had a big television and she enjoyed playing on it. 

* * *

“Hey, sorry I’m late, but I’m here now.” He ditched a bag in the doorway, but she was glaring at the TV from where she sat on the edge of his bed as she got kicked into third place. 

“Mh.” She acknowledged his presence. 

“What, you love that game more than me, or something? Is there no pause button?” He joked. 

“Yeah yeah, hold on a second, I’m on lap two, almost onto lap three.” She didn’t hear what he said. He just shook his head at her as he folded up the shirt he had been wearing, and stuck it back in the drawer. He had only worn it for three hours, there was no point in washing it just for that. He would save Alfred the laundry.

“You are something else, you know that?” He laughed at her. 

“Yeah, uh huh.” She paid him no mind as he crawled over behind her. He wondered how far he could get before she finally realized he was there. 

He started with what he had done that day in the living room, when he had tried to distract her to win. 

He wrapped his legs around her waist, hugged her from behind, and put his oddly cold nose against the back of her neck. 

“Almost done, I promise.” She mumbled. 

He kissed her neck, and she hummed in response. 

He licked her earlobe, and she still did nothing. 

This had gotten _much_ more of a rise out of her when she had been paying attention. 

it had been far more entertaining then, when she was pissed off by it, than when she hardly realized he was even there. 

When she still didn’t acknowledge him, he slowly and very gently started to nibble on her ear. 

“Almost to the finish line, I’ll be done in a few…. Few more seconds, and…. YES!” She pumped her fist in the air, jamming her shoulder into his nose. He leaned back away from her, and rubbed his face. 

_ Damn, it’s like the day we met all over again…Breaking my damn nose...  _

“Oh, hey, Damian, you’re home.” She finally noticed him. “Did you say something?” He stared at her, and tried not to laugh. 

“Yeah. I said quite a lot, actually.” 

“Oh. Shit. Sorry.” She cringed in embarrassment, and he held his arms out as he leaned back. She ditched the controller, and practically jumped on him. 

“So we can finally get to the whole resolving our awful sexual tension now, right?” He asked. 

“Oh a hundred percent.” She grinned. 

“You sure?”

“Completely.”

“Fantastic.”

* * *

  
  
  


“Yo. I want breakfast.” She called Jon the next day. 

“Dude it’s after eleven. It’s lunch time.”

“Brunch then.” She argued.

“Fine, we can go eat brunch with the old ladies.” He deadpanned, and she cheered as she grabbed her mini backpack before heading out to grab her motorcycle keys. 

“Hey.” She saw Damian in the hallway, in the middle of the project he was working on. She didn’t completely understand what it was. “Where are you going?”

“Brunch, with Jon. I would have invited you, but you said you were really busy.”

“Oh, cool.” She was almost out the door, and he adeed, “Wait, do you have any cash? You said you were almost out on the card your parents gave you and had to wait until they paid it off, and I don’t know if you have any cash on you, seeing as, you know, your money is in a France-based bank.” She hadn’t thought of that. 

“Oh. Shit. Yeah, I do.” He handed her a fifty, and she gave him a goodbye kiss. 

“Have fun.”

“Thanks, babe.” She grinned, and finally made her way out, “Kick ass on whatever you're doing.”

“Oh why thank you. Goodbye.” 

"Bye."

* * *

“So, you two idiots finally get over your whole getting-super-close-to-doing-it-but-something-always-stops-you problem?” He teased her as she shut her bike off. 

She gave him a shocked look. 

“How did you know about that?” She asked, pulled her bright pink helmet off. 

“Ok, rude.” He crossed his arms in fake disgust. “You two may be the certified-genius super detective duo, but first of all, I’m Jon Motherfucking Kent, I know everything, and second, you two are my best friends. I know everything about you whether you realize it or not.” She huffed, and followed him through the door to the place they had agreed to meet at. 

“I officially hate you.” 

“You say, as you keep walking in, and don’t leave.” He pointed out sarcastically. 

“Shut the fuck up.” She took a seat, and quietly added, “And to answer your question… yes.”

“Ha!” He cackled, and she glowered at him. 

“So, what do you want?” She changed the subject.

“I don’t know. Damn, M, since when did you have expensive breakfast tastes?”

“Nah, it’s ok.” She showed him what she had gotten from Damian. “Pretty sure D has a very terrible concept of how much things cost.”

“Ooh, we’re eating on Wayne money today.”

“Yup.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Get a gamer girlfriend" they said "It'll be cute" they said.


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to write live five pics at once and it's not going well. I HAVE TOO MANY IDEAS. I'M TOO SMART FOR MY OWN GOOD.

“Hey M, remember when you said I couldn’t cut your hair?” Jon asked a little suspiciously.

“Uh, yeah, and I still stand by that, why?” She gave him a cautious look. 

“I had an idea.”

“Oh no. Jon? Thinking? This is gonna go terribly.” Damian said, completely seriously. 

“Shut up. I was saying we give you an undercut. Your hair is growing out, and I think it would look super cute with a ponytail.” She was skeptical at first, but then he showed her an example, and she had to admit it looked… pretty cool. 

“I’m only agreeing to this if you promise not to fuck it up.”

“I promise on my truck keys it won’t look terrible.” He offered. 

“Cool. Let’s do it.”

* * *

The next week, the first weekend of April vacation, she found herself with Jon in the hallway to Kon’s apartment.

“YO! WE’RE STEALING YOUR BATHROOM!” Jon yelled as he walked in. Conner flinched at the sudden loud noise. 

“What the hell are you stealing the bathroom for?” 

“We’re gonna cut my hair.” Marinette offered. 

“Oh. Oh no. No way.” He looked at them like they were crazy. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Absolutely positive.” Jon nodded, and Marinette completely agreed. 

“It’s a wonderful idea.”

“Oh boy.” He was already texting Lois to see what he should do when this failed miserably. 

“Ok, so, I watched like three youtube tutorials on how to do this, and even got the right tools.”

“Good, because when it grows out again, we’ll need them to do it again.” She nodded in approval. 

“Right? Anyway, here’s the silly cape thing, you can figure this out, and I got the same razor the lady in one of the videos said to use, and so I can set it to a quarter of an inch.”

“Nice.” She tried not to strangle herself with the ‘silly cape thing’ and then put her hair up in a tight ponytail. 

“Cool. Next step is to take this comb thing, and make an even line…” He pulled the lower section of her hair out of the ponytail, at a length she liked. They went with the top of her ears. 

“And make extra sure it’s even.” She reminded him. 

“It is!”

“Are you sure?”

“Very sure! Super extra sure!” He insisted. 

“You better be.” She grumbled, and he messed with the razor until he was sure it was right. 

“Ok, you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” She sighed, and climbed up on the counter to sit still. 

“Cool.” He started the electric razor, and she inhaled sharply. He heard it. 

He sighed, and shut the razor off.

“Do you want me to do it or not, M?”

“Yes! Just get it over with!” She tried not to snap, and he started it up again. 

“Ok, here goes.” She made a face at herself in the mirror as he started to shave off bits of her hair, starting with the bottom. 

“M, I can _ hear _ your panicking. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“You suggested it!” She reminded him. “And yes, I’m just nervous about the blade, now fucking cut my hair off already you big baby.”

“Fine, alright, I’m going.” He went slowly, and eventually made a nice even undercut. 

“Cute.” He noted, and she opened her squeezed shut eyes. 

The hair that had been dangling over her shoulders was gone. 

She gave a small gasp, and turned her head. 

“Oh shit.” She mumbled. 

“What? Did I miss something?”

“No, I mean, like holy shit in a good way. Holy shit as in  _ I look good _ .” She touched a little, shocked at how tiny and small the hairs were, and grinned at herself in the mirror.

“Did I do a good job?”

“You did a fucking fabulous job.” She wiggled in excitement, and immediately tried to figure out how to send a picture to Damian. 

“You look cute.”

“You know what would make me even cuter?”

“What?”

“Remember what I looked like as Emerald Shell?” His eyes widened, and he clapped in excitement. 

“Oh hell yeah, you would look hot with space buns.” He nodded in encouragement, and she dug into her backpack for more hair elastics. 

She pulled her hair up into two space buns, and sat on Conners counter again to take a mirror selfie. 

After, of course, cleaning all the hair up and throwing it into the trash. 

* * *

Damian was just finishing up with something for his section of his father's business that he worked for, when his phone dinged.

_ Ma Mie _ 🍞:  _ Attachment: Four Images. _

“Ah, excuse me.” He said to a few of the board members, and opened the message. 

The first picture was of her grinning with her hair up in a ponytail, the section of hair she cut off somewhat visible. 

The second picture, she had changed it to her Emerald Shell buns. She was puffing out her cheeks and slightly cross-eyed. 

In the third picture, she was scrunching her nose and Jon was leaning backwards in the background, holding a razor like it was a microphone, and making a dramatic screaming face. 

He tried not to laugh out loud, but he couldn’t help but smile at them. He loved his two favorite idiots. 

The fourth picture was similar to the third but blurrier because she was laughing and couldn’t hold the camera still. 

He saved the pictures to his phone, and went back to saying his goodbyes. 

“Good news?” One of them asked, noticing the amusement in his face. 

“Oh, just my friends being silly.” He shook his head. “Not something major I was worrying about.”

* * *

  
  


“Hey, look at you!” Damian smiled at her as she was waiting for him, leaning on her pink bike outside WE, wearing a black leather jacket, a gray plaid skirt with a thick black belt, a black red and blue Jagged Stone shirt she had designed, and holding her helmet against her stomach. 

She couldn’t wear the space buns under the helmet, but she did have two high-up pigtails instead. 

She had on Doc Martin boots with tall white socks. 

And she looked sexy as hell. 

“Look at me.” She grinned cheesily, and he took the helmet out of her hands so he could hold her as close as possible as he kissed her on the side of the street. He tried not to mess up her cute dep maroon lipstick, but he could only hold himself back so much. 

“You look so cute with that little undercut, Jon might actually be smart after all.” He noted, and she gave him a hug. He took the opportunity to run his fingers through the short hair. 

He felt a low rumbling coming from her throat, and they both froze. 

“Oh my god, did you purr again?” He laughed, and she blushed furiously. 

“Shut up.” She grumbled and handed him a black helmet. “And JJ said this was yours.”

Since Jon was J, Jason couldn’t also be J. So she called him JJ, despite there being only one letter J in his name. 

“Thanks.” He took it, and climbed on behind her. 

They both failed to notice someone discreetly taking pictures. 

  
  



	45. Chapter 45

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok so last night i gave up writing for re-reading one of my old abandoned fics called Lawyers From Hell and h o l y s h i t it is SO GOOD I can't wait until I have enough written to post it. I have no idea why I abandoned that, it is PEAK awesomeness.   
> Basically, I don't want to spoil it, but its a pic where Chloe and Marinette grew up as sisters and became a scary-awesome lawyer duo who take down terrorist and then they get hired by Wayne Enterprises to face of with Lex Luthor and it is AMAZING I'm so good at this.

“Is that… Is that Marinette?” Rose asked, looking at the Magazine Alya had angrily brought into class with her. 

“Oh my god that’s Marinette.” Adrien grabbed it, and everyone crowded around her in the front of the classroom, all trying to get a look at the copy of the magazine with Marinette on the cover. 

“Who is that she’s with?” Lila snarled at the picture.

“Uh, him?” Alya pointed to the title on the page. _ ‘Second Wayne Heir-’  _ Was all they referred to him as. 

Then they noticed the second photo. Smaller, in a bubble, down in the corner. Pictures of them very much kissing. 

“How could she? How dare she just go and break my heart like this-” 

“Yeah, because god forbid the woman has a life of her own.” Nino laughed hollowly. “How dare she move on from you? How dare she grow and have feelings? Is that what you think, Agreste?” Chloé looked over at him, wondering where the sudden defense for her was coming from. 

“No, how dare she just ignore me and just go up and hurt me on purpose like this-”

“NEWS FLASH BRO, NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU.” He stood up in his seat, and everyone kept silent as they almost started a fistfight before Mme. Buster walked in and made them all sit down and shut up. 

* * *

“Lahiffe.” Chloé said, leaning on the door, as they were the last two people in the locker hall. 

“What do you want?”

“Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Sudden?” He snapped at her. “You think I haven’t been on her side the whole time?”

“Where were you, then.” She stopped looking at her nails, and finally looked up at him. “Where were you when all the shit went down? Where was your support when she got kicked out? Where were you when she needed you?” Chloé snapped back. 

“I wanted to help. I really did.” He growled at her. “I promise, watching everything happen from the sidelines killed me inside. She was… ever since we were kids. She was one of my best friends. I loved her at one point, even. You remember, I’m assuming?”

“Then why do nothing? Why sit there, and watch?” She took a step towards him, challenging him, and he accepted. 

“Because I'm not like you, Chloé!” He raised his voice slightly. “I’m not a pretty blonde white girl who can charm her way into any situation! I actually have to worry about myself sometimes, you know.” She took that into consideration. “Lila isn’t  _ completely _ powerless, she could get me in a lot more trouble than she could get you into.” 

“Yeah, but-”

“Yeah, I cared about her a lot, but I can’t just throw myself under a bus for everyone I like. That shit really does affect me, you know.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t, because if you did, you wouldn’t be yelling at me for trying to save myself in a shitty situation.”

“Fine.” She admitted defeat. “I’m sorry.” He recoiled, and blinked. 

“What?”

“I said I’m sorry, Lahiffe, ok?”

“Since when did  _ Chloé Bouroise _ say sorry?”

“Since I was wrong, ok?” She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she walked away. “I shouldn’t have been so insensitive to your situation. I apologize.” He just blinked at her vacated location, and then went home. 

He needed some water. 

He was clearly hallucinating if Chloé had apologized to him. 

* * *

“Do some redecorating?” Marinette crouched down to look at the ripped-out magazine article Bella had taped to their wall under the window. 

“Yeah, I figured the room could use some new color. I went with the pink magazine. Figured the cute pictures would really give the room a  _ pop _ .” Bella nodded completely seriously. 

“You have got to be kidding me.” She mumbled, looking back and forth between the article and the picture. “This is ridiculous.”

“I bought a second one, too. For the scrapbook I’m making.”

“Scrapbook?” She raised an eyebrow at her roommate as she jumped up on her bed. 

“I’m keeping a scrapbook of all the articles I can find of you and the Ice Prince.”

“No way.” She laughed, and pulled out her phone just in time to see Chloé calling her. 

“Hello?”

“Dupain-Cheng?”

“Present and alive.” She answered. “Let me guess, you want to talk about my lack of noticing reporters.”

“No, I wanted to talk about…” She didn’t have to finish her sentence. 

“Chloé, I really don’t want to talk about them.” She mumbled. 

“Actually, I more like, want to talk about what happened.. After.” 

“After?” There was a pause on the Paris end of the call.

“Nino stuck up for you today. He said he was mad he couldn’t do more for you, but he was scared.”

“Oh?” She took a second to let that settle in her mind. 

“Yeah.”

“Huh.”

“Yup.”

“You didn’t tell him you know how to contact me, right?”

“Oh obviously not. I won’t do that until he really proves himself, you know?”

“Thanks, Chlo.” They talked a little longer, about what he had said and the validity of it, and she eventually hung up.

  
  



	46. Chapter 46

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's bring in some new characters, shall we?

She was inspecting a piece of evidence from a crime scene on a bridge she had created when something flew out of the air at her. 

Without hesitating, she reached out and batted it away, disintegrating it. 

“Ha-ha, very funny Superboy. Throwing things at the Cat to bat out of the air. So comical.” She grumbled. 

“Not Superboy.” A girl's voice growled, and she jumped, readying her baton. 

She saw a bright purple girl in front of her. 

“Well who, then?” She growled back, and the girl crossed her arms. 

“Doesn’t matter.” The Purple Girl snapped at her. 

She started to float, and a pile of debris started floating behind her. 

“You just hurt those people. Now I’m gonna hurt you.”

“Taking something out of context, much?” She snapped sarcastically, and made herself a shield as the girl three debris at her. It flew in all different directions. The girl narrowed her eyes at her. 

“That shouldn't be possible.”

“Neither should you floating, but I’ll take it in stride.” She was willing to give the girl a second chance if she just apologized, but it looked like she wasn’t going to. “Come on, give me a second to explain, and we won’t have to fight over it. Maybe.” She offered. 

“You hurt people. Now live with it.” The girl clenched her fist, and a particularly large piece of cement flew at her. She jumped 15 feet in the air to backflip over and out of the way. 

“Look, bitch, do you fancy yourself a superhero?”

“I am a superhero!” She insisted.

“Yeah, well, me too!” She yelled back. 

“I don’t believe you!” More debris flew at her, and she deflected and jumped pretty easily. 

“Yeah, well, me neither, but I’m willing to resist fighting you to listen to your side of the story!” She argued. The girl just scowled at her, and clapped both of her hands. 

So much of the debris flew at her, and cocooned her. All the tiny rocks she just made pushed into her skin. 

The suit could only do so much for the pressure. 

“Wait… hold on… we can…” She tried. The girl squished her even more. 

“Admit you did something wrong!” She yelled. 

“Beacon!” Robin appeared, and saw what was happening. “Let go! You’re hurting her, Beacon!” he sounded panicked. 

“You didn’t see what she did!” The girl, apparently named Beacon, yelled. 

Their voices seemed far off, and she was losing her vision.

She was struggling to breath. 

She started to panic. 

She felt her skin start to tingle and crackle. 

“Beacon you idiot, that’s my girlfriend!” Robin snapped. 

He was a little too late. 

She snapped, and the same thing that happened at the lab happened again. 

The debri turned into powder with a loud bang, and propelled away from her as she fell to the ground. 

There was a deafening silence.

Until the Beacon kid groaned and rolled over, holding onto her ears. 

Robin choked on some dust, and struggled to his feet. She started to cry again, and she heard him run to her. 

“I can’t see.” She choked, and he pulled her to her feet. “I feel like I can’t breathe, I can’t see, my arms hurt, and my ribs hurt, and…” She melted into his chest as he started to heal her. 

A wave of warmth passed over her, and her head cleared. 

Her vision came back, and the soreness in her body disappeared. 

* * *

  
  


**Twenty minutes earlier…**

“Robin, we’re hearing Black Cat kicking ass on a bridge. She doesn’t seem to need help, but you’ll probably be appreciated at the scene.” Oracle teased him. 

“On it.” He started to make his way to her location, and then Oracle updated him again. 

“It sounds like she solved the problem, but now something’s seriously off. They’re saying she’s fighting someone with what they’re describing as ‘earth-bending’ like a bunch of un-descriptive assholes-”

“Thanks Oracle.” He deadpanned, and shut the comms off.

He was almost there when he heard the fight before he saw it. 

Wait, that sounds like  _ Beacon _ …

He jumped over a rooftop to see Black Cat completely playing defense. She wasn’t attacking Beacon at all, but Kathy was throwing rocks at her left and right.

_ What the hell?  _

He started to make his way towards them when Beacon started to crush her in a cocoon of cement chunks. Black Cat was noticeably panicking. 

“Beacon! Let go!” He started to panic himself. Black Cat struggled, and he felt a surge of anger and fear. “You’re hurting her, Beacon!” He started to run. 

“You didn’t see what she did!” Kathy insisted. “She hurt all those people, she deserves it!”

“Please, just let her go!” His Cat’s eyes started to glow an even brighter blue, and he wondered what that meant.

“Do you even know her?”

“Beacon, you idiot, that’s my girlfriend!” He yelled at her. She blinked at him, but was too confused to drop her. 

He noticed her shoulders start to crack with black lightning, and she was too late. 

A loud boom sounded, and he ducked as dust and small rocks flew everywhere. 

None of them seemed to hit him in any way, but he ducked anyway.

He heard a thud as his kitty fell to the ground, and he looked up. 

The dust was still moving quickly. 

Beacon choked, but he paid her no attention as he ran to Black Cat. 

“I can’t see.” She said in a wobbly voice as tears started to come out of her eyes. “I feel like I can’t breathe, I can’t see, my arms hurt, and my ribs hurt, and…” He grabbed her, and pulled her close to his chest. 

_ Come on, please be ok, I need you to be ok, you have to be, I need you. _

He felt his energy focus as she leaned on him, and he did the strange glowing thing for the first time in a while. 

He had practiced on small things, but he seemed to only be able to heal on a large scale when he was a nervous wreck. 

“Are you ok?” He asked after a second, and she blinked up at him a few times.

“Yeah.” She mumbled, and took a few deep breaths. “Yeah, I’m better now.”

“Good.” 

“Who the fuck are you?” Beacon asked groggily as she came back to her senses. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy.” Black Cat spat at her, angrily. “You had your chance to ask, and then you had three or four second chances, but no. Your bitch ass had to go all  _ ‘rocks now, questions later’ _ , huh?” 

Beacon looked extremely guilty. 

“Seriously Branden what the fuck.” Robin gave her a disappointed glare. 

“Hey! You’re the one that’s always a stickler for codenames in the field!”

“You don’t deserve a code name when you try to  _ murder my significant other _ .” He argued back. “I thought you were smarter than that, but  _ apparently _ not.” 

* * *

Two hours later, several people were sitting around a large round table. 

“You tried to choke someone out because of what you _think_ you saw, Kathy? Not cool.” Jon was giving her a strange angry look. Marinette was glaring at her. 

“Ok, yeah, well, excuse me if I think-”

“You’re  _ not  _ excused.” Damian snapped at her. 

“He’s right.” Dick frowned at her, still in the Batman costume. “That was a _ terrible  _ move on your part.”

“Well I’m sorry! How many times do I have to say I’m sorry before you think I mean it?!”

“When you make up for as many chances that I gave you that you took for granted and threw away.” Marinette grumbled. 

“Oh,  _ now _ you’re talking to me?” Kathy crossed her arms at her. 

“Oh, you’ve gone back to being a bitch again?” She shot back. “Funny, two seconds ago, I thought you were sorry.”

“I’m not sorry at you, I’m sorry at them.” The blond snarled at her.

“Oh no.” Jon saw exactly where this was going, and it wasn’t pretty.

“Oh, I get it.” Marinette stood up from her seat. “You’re only seeing me as an extension of somebody else, and not my own person who you hurt and want to apologize to. You want to apologize to someone else for what you did to me.” There was a cutting silence. 

Jon cringed, and Damian stared at the table. 

These were their friends. 

Their friends who had never met and now hated each other.

This was going to be a mess. 

  
  



	47. Chapter 47

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Been busy. Very sorry.   
> Been creative. Started a second college AU.

Marinette was pissed for a week. 

She stormed through the halls, making people part in the hallway as if she were Moses and they were the sea. 

She felt like a damn queen, but a rather pissed off one at that. 

That Sarah bitch was no longer trying to start fights with her, but apparently god said  _ ‘for every door that closes another opens’ _ and bam. Kathy was picking fights with her in her place. 

On wednesday, after school while hanging out at Jon’s house, as a joke, to lighten her own mood, she gave him a pink bow to stick in his hair. 

She thought it might make her feel better. 

She was right, it did make her feel better, watching him pose as he took nearly a hundred pictures with it.

“Hey, where’s my bow?” Damian complained, and she gave him one too. 

“Here. This one’s pink polka-dotted.”

“Oh fuck yeah.” He took it and put it in his hair. 

She was wearing a pink jacket, and Jon made them take a picture together in his bathroom mirror. 

“Why?” Marinette had never seen Mean Girls. 

“Get an Insta to follow me with, and find out.” He teased her. 

“Fine, if I have to.” She grumbled, and made a private account. 

She scrolled through Jon’s feed, and stopped on a picture of herself at the Aquarium. 

It was of her throwing her arms into the air and Damian next to her, mocking her. 

She remembered that. 

She had been pretending to make noises at the whale, wondering if he would make noises back. 

He hadn’t. 

Damian had mocked her, by imitating her. 

She was grateful there was no video attached. 

She might have to have killed him for that. 

It was captioned, 

**UndahThahSeaaaa** _I love my two dumbass best friends._

“Jon, why is your username a Little Mermaid reference?” She asked. 

“Fuck you I have an awesome username.”

“Oh, yeah, obviously, but… why?”

“Because fuck you that’s why.”

“Understandable.” 

She made her first post the picture from New Years.

A few minutes later, she saw Jon had posted the picture he had just taken. 

**UndahThahSeaaaa** _ On Wednesdays We Wear Pink _

She laughed at the caption. 

According to the other kids at GA, this was, how could she put it, Very Them.

“I kinda want to watch this movie now.” She smiled, and put her phone in her pocket. 

“Oh my god yes movie night.” Jon grinned, and looked for the movie. He had it on the shelf, somewhere. 

He found the disk, and put it in the XBox. 

All three of them attempted to fit in the same chair, but were a little unsuccessful. 

Eventually, just as the beginning credits ended, they got it so Jon was sitting in the chair as a normal person would, Damian was sitting in his lap perpendicular to him, his legs dangling over the arm of the chair, and Marinette was sitting on top of Damian, but not directly in front of Jon so that he could see over her shoulder. It was actually pretty successful that time. 

“I don’t think I noticed how much muscle you actually have.” Jon noted as she leaned up against him. 

“You didn’t?”

“No, actually.”

She smirked in a teasing way as she dramatically flexed, to be funny, but Damian had to bury his head in his hands as he blushed. She laughed at him. 

“Shut up and play the movie already.” He grumbled.

Since Marinette was the one on the top of their people pile, she was in charge of putting the next movie in. 

“Let’s watch Night At The Museum next.” She pulled it off the shelf, and put in the first of the trilogy before climbing back onto her spot in the pile. 

Then she put in the sequel. 

And then she put in the third. 

About halfway through the last one, Marinette found herself getting tired. 

She looked over, and saw Damian leaning on Jons shoulder, his eyes closed and seemingly asleep. 

She smiled at him, and sneakily managed to take a picture of him from her angle. 

Then she reached her hand out, and took a selfie. Jon made a cute face. 

But when she opened it to look at it again, she noticed Damian giving her phone the middle finger. His eyes were still closed. 

She laughed, and set her phone down. 

When the movie ended, she went back to the dorm. 

* * *

“So, he calls you his best friend, huh?” Beacon interrupted her patrol the next day. Well, night, rather. 

“Yup.” She sighed, crouching to look over the edge of a building.

_ What was it with this chick and starting fights she didn’t have to? _

“Well, he may call you his best friend but I was his first friend.” She said, as if she were holding it over her head somehow. 

She stood up from where she had been leaning, and looked her dead in the eyes. 

“Well then. Thank you for being there for him during a time where I could not.”  _ Check, and- _ “And for letting me be better than you while you were gone.”  _ Checkmate, motherfucker _ . 

She jumped over the side, and disappeared into the night. 

* * *

“Can you tell her not to seek me out if she’s only going to antagonize me instead of being _actually helpful_?” She had invited herself into the Batcave. 

“Kathy again?” Jon asked, also having invited himself in. 

“Is that her name?”

“Beacon?” Robin grumbled. 

“Yeah, that’s the bitch.” She sighed. “It’s like Lila two-point-oh. Trying to brag about being your friend first to get me mad.”

“Did she?” Jon asked, and she leaned on him for a hug. He gave her one.

“Yeah. And I had to come up with something snarky and clever to get her to shut up.” 

“Well, what did you come up with?”

“I thanked her for being there when I wasn’t.” Damian snorted. 

“You are something else, Marinette.” He smiled as he shook his head at her. 

“You aren’t going to let her opinion of me change anything, are you?” 

* * *

They both froze when she asked that. 

It suddenly hit them how much she actually was scared of that. 

And that to her, it was a _very plausible event._

“Never.” Jon picked her up so her feet were off the floor, and she wrapped her legs around him so her arms weren’t supporting all her weight. “Absolutely  _ not ever _ .”

“Ok.” She mumbled, not sounding too sure.

“Look, M,” Damian put the last of his stuff away, and hugged her while she still holding onto Jon, squishing her between them, “We are not idiots. Normally, I would make a joke about how I am offended you think I am so stupid as to leave you based on someone elses opinion, but I can see it clearly not the time. But I’m gonna let you know anyway. We are not so dumb we’re gonna get in a fight because one of our other friends happens ot have issues with you.”

“Ok.” This time, she sounded a little more convinced. 

“Yeah, it might cause a little problem, but we’ll get there when we get there. And when we do, we’re not gonna leave you behind. No matter what.”

“Thanks.” She started to sniffle. 

“Alright, tissues, tissues fast, I do not want you getting snot on my shirt.” Jon made a disgusted face at her, and she giggled. 

“Ok, ok, I’ll go get myself tissues.”

“Nah, I got it.” Damian let them go, and hunted for a box of tissues

  
  



	48. Chapter 48

“Ugh, I can’t wait for next weekend. This is gonna be  _ so _ much fun.” Jon said as he sat down next to Marinette for lunch. 

“Next… weekend?” She frowned. 

“Oh god, not again.” Damian sighed as he took his seat across from her. 

Even though he would much rather be sitting next to her, he didn’t want to disrupt their system much more than they already had. 

“Not again what?”

“Pretty sure he’s talking about holidays you don’t know how to celebrate.” Jon pointed out. She scowled at her boyfriend. 

“Hey. Fuck you.”

“Hey. Fuck you too.”

“It’s May, next weekend is Memorial day. In Gotham, there’s a big festival at the fairgrounds, and there’s roller coasters and other kinds of fun rides that come in for the weekend and then pack up and go to the next city at the end of the week.”

“Ah.” She nodded. “Sounds interesting.”

‘But there’s also fun little games that Jon and I cheat like motherfuckers at.” Damian added. 

“Ah!” She nodded, a little more interested. “Very interesting!”

“It is.” They agreed. 

* * *

She sat in her homeroom, staring at the table like she normally did, bored, and ignoring people, when a girl she didn’t recognize sat down next to her.

“Hi! I’m Ava Albertalli.” She stuck a hand out. “What’s your name?”

The whole room seemed to be staring at them. 

Ava noticed, her eyes flitting around the room slightly, but she didn’t let it bother her. 

She just stared at the girl. 

Four years ago, she would have loved to introduce herself to this girl. 

Become her friend. 

Talk to her about everything. 

But she wasn’t the person she was four years ago. 

She had two friends who she loved very much thank you.

And she had no intention of making any more. 

She had already gone through the whole ‘this is my tragic backstory and now we’re super close’ thing nce already, she didn’t need to do it again. 

She was not interested in putting in the work to make a long-term friend, nor was she interested in having any casual friends. 

Casual friends were easier to lose. 

And she lost them to silly rumors all the time. 

No way no how sir no thank you.

“Um, Ava, you said?” A hesitant voice came from behind them. “Maybe you want to come sit with us.”

“But I’m trying to talk to-”

“Go.” Was all Marinette gave her. 

“Hey! You said something!” She smiled brightly at her. 

“Yeah, she told you to move, dumbass, now move.” A guy to her left pointed out.

Ava gave her one last concerned look before moving back to the people who had invited her to talk to them. 

“What’s her deal?” Ava asked. 

She didn’t want to use her hearing to spy on them, but she did anyway.

“She’s… ok, it’s kinda hard to explain, but… have you ever watched Mean Girls?”

She couldn’t help but laugh at the comparison, and went back to scrolling through her phone. 

* * *

She stalked to her period one class, noticing the looks her classmates gave her in the hallway for the way she had treated the new girl. 

She couldn’t bring herself to care.

She stopped at a water fountain to refill her water bottle. 

She went to grab her spare chair from where someone in another class had moved it, and found Ava sitting in it.

“Having flashbacks?” Damian teased her as he put his hand on her back moving past her. 

“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes at him, wishing he hadn’t taken his hand back and just left it there, but alas he had moved past her back to their table. 

“Look, Ava, how tragic of you, but you’re sitting in my seat and I need you to pick a different one.” She said down at her. The girl seemed to ponder this. 

“You know what, no.” She said, acting all cocky. 

“Me excuse?” She heard Damian trying to suppress laughter in the back of the room. 

“You think you can just boss people around, act like you think you can just walk over here, demand things of me, and then-” She didn’t wait for her to finish. 

She leaned down, grabbed the legs of the chair, and dumped the girl onto the floor. Then, Damian couldn’t hold it back anymore. He laughed out loud, cackling at the poor girl on the floor. Jon walked in, and confusedly observed the situation. 

“Maybe I should have tried that on you.” Damian grinned at her. 

“Was I really that insufferable?” She asked as she set her chair down between him and the other chair. 

“Oh, you were worse. She just snapped at you. You punched me, remember?”

“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes at him, “That was a  _ completely _ different situation. In  _ that _ moment, you were trying to be nice to me.” She recalled. He snorted, and put an arm around her as she sat on the edge of her seat. 

“Do you want to tell me what just happened?” Jon sat down next to them.

“Marinette dumped a girl onto the floor for her seat.”

“Huh. Alright, then.” He nodded, and pulled out his notebook. “Oop, looks like you got trouble.” He noted a few seconds later as the new girl was complaining to the teacher. 

“Bust me out of detention this week?” Marinette batted her eyelashes at Damian, who snorted at her. 

“Tch, you  _ deserve  _ this one.” He gave her a pointed look. 

“Oh come on. You promised last time, and you failed. Bust me out this time?”

“Fine.” 

“Miss Dupain-Cheng, I expect to see you wednesday.” Mr. Frost yelled from the front of the room. She gave him a thumbs up.

“Sure thing, Mr. Frost!” She yelled cheerfully. Ava glared at her. She winked back at her. 

Then he gave them a lab to work on, and the students moved around the room to gather materials. 

* * *

Damian was struggling to make a burner turn on when Ava came up to him. 

The girl really didn’t seem to have any brains in her. 

At all. 

“Why do you like someone like her?” She asked him accusingly. 

He froze, and gave her a blank look. 

“Like her?” He echoed. 

“Yeah, she’s… so mean. Why would you ever like someone so mean?” She narrowed her eyes at him. He blinked, and turned to yell, 

“Hey. Babe.” 

“Hm?” She didn’t look up from the thing she was working on with Jon. 

“Do the thing.” He smirked as he yelled. 

“What thing?” She asked, still looking at the glass she was measuring. 

“The thing!” He insisted. 

“Oh, you mean this thing?” She set down the glass, and flexed. 

“Yeahhhhhh. That thing.” He grinned at her, and then went back to his icy glare as he looked back at Ava.

“Seriously?” She crossed her arms until she started to shrink under his glare. 

_ Good, dumbass bitch. _

“Yeah. Seriously.” He growled and she blinked. Her intimidating demeanor was proving itself to be fake. “And you listen to me about one thing, bitch,” He snarled, “I don’t care how bad you think she is.  _ I promise you, I’m worse _ .” She had one last snark in her. 

“Well what about the sunshine boy over there?” She tried. “What’s his deal, he looks as scary as a golden retriever.”

Marinette whipped her head around.

“Ok, first of all, he has a fucking name, it’s Jon, and second, you  _ will not _ talk shit about Jon or I will throw you off the roof, got it?” She grabbed the girl by the edge of her shirt, and Damian contemplated pulling her back. 

But then again, Jon was his friend too. 

He cared about him just as much as his M did.

“Whatever.” Ava snapped, and went back to her own group. 

  
  



	49. Chapter 49

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OK SO UM I ACCIDENTALLY POSTED THE WRONG CHAPTER WHOOPS SORRY
> 
> MY BAD
> 
> also I got lost today, my brother told me to take a wrong turn on purpose and we were bored and I just... didn't turn around, and kept going, just to see what we could see, and then I went home after like an hour. 
> 
> And I've ben writing so much, but like, for seven different stories. 
> 
> Whoops.

Batman and Robin were patrolling the city when he saw her walking down the street. 

He stopped for a second, and she noticed him. 

She waved, stopping where she was for only a few short seconds, and he grinned as he waved back.

“Hey! Get a move on, Robin cannot be seen getting distracted by a random civilian who has a boyfriend!” Batman reminded him, and he grumped before remembering he was right. 

A few seconds later, they heard an explosion somewhere behind them. 

He wasted no time turning and running. 

* * *

She had been walking to a fabric store, pretty late at night, desperately needing a set of buttons for a project she was working on, when a building in front of her exploded. 

Had she not stopped for those two seconds to wave to Robin, she would have been in front of it. 

But the pressure of the compressed heat still got to her a bit, she was knocked backwards onto the ground, and collided with a few shards of glass from the broken display windows. 

She hit the pavement with a thud, and had to roll to avoid being hit by a swerving car. 

She ended up rolling onto shards of glass as she tried to sit up, but just gave up and held still. 

Her ears were ringing. 

Smoke was rolling towards her, and down the street. 

“Hey!” Someone yelled. 

Her lip was bleeding from glass when she had to avoid the car. 

The back of her head was sore, from falling. 

“Hey, can you hear me?” Someone picked her up from where she was laying on her stomach. 

She tried to fight them off, until she turned to see Robin looking scared out his mind. 

“Are you alright?” Oh, right. 

He wasn’t supposed to know her. 

That sucked. 

“Do I look ok to you?” She retorted. 

“Do you need anything?”

“I need you to go figure out what the hell just happened.” She gestured to the broken windows. He should be doing his damn job, not worrying about her.

“Batman’s on it.” He deflected. “You are a medical emergency, you get to be my problem.”

“Oh fun.” She deadpanned. “A problem.”

“What’s wrong?” He lowered his voice slightly, and she was no longer Random Civilian In Need, she was Marinette, bleeding out on the sidewalk. 

“Glass shards cutting into my side and face, bruise on the back of my head, no concussion, I landed more on my hands than my head, also my wrist hurts like hell from stopping my fall and-”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s enough of a reason for me to call an ambulance.”

“Oh, right.” He couldn’t do the glowing thing in front of, you know, normal people. 

Who were gathering into a crowd. 

“Look, I have to… I have to go, Batman needs me, but…” He couldn’t say ‘I’ll see you later’ that would be dumb. 

He just gave her a distressed look, one that very obviously read  _ I don’t want to leave you because I care about you very much but I have to go for rEaSoNs _ and she smiled at him as he ran off, quite clearly upset. 

* * *

As they apprehended the person responsible for the explosion, an ambulance showed up.

They checked her out for a concussion, but concluded she was fine. 

She did, however, have a sprained wrist they insist they put a wrap on. 

The glass only gave her a few small cuts, she didn’t need any stitches. 

But the bandages they put on her were pretty big.

“Hey.” Robin came and found her, and the paramedics paid him no mind. “Did you see anyone else flee the scene, by any chance?” He was only a little serious, he was just looking for a reason to talk to her again. 

“No, I didn’t, sorry.” She struggled to stand up, and he instinctively reached out to grab her. 

One of the medics raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. 

“So you saw nothing out of the ordinary as the building blew up?” He grabbed her with both hands to gently pull her out of the ambulance. 

“Nope, nothing.” She had to refrain from hugging him. 

He had good acting skills, but wasn’t talented enough to pretend to be surprised by her hug. 

“Well, in that case, do you need anything?” She had an idea.

“I was going to the fabric store, but I guess that plan’s cancelled. Help me home? I’m still pretty dizzy.” She put on her best guilty face, and he shrugged as if it were no big deal. 

“Sure, why not.” He tried to sound casual, and picked her up. She laughed at him, and he rolled his eyes at her. 

He hit the rooftops, and as soon as they were far enough away from the scene, and on a high enough roof, he set her down. 

“Hey, is everything-” She was cut off by his nervously putting one hand on the side of her face, and pulling her against him with his other hand. 

“Are you ok?” He put his forehead against hers, and her breath caught. “For real, this time.”

“I’ll live.” She answered, noticing she could feel his heartbeat through the fabric. 

“You scared me.”

“I have that tendency sometimes.” She put her hands on his neck gently, and closed her eyes as their lips clashed, both just grateful the other was alive. 

Being quite a bit taller than her, he had to lean down fairly far to reach her. 

But he leaned a little _ too _ far, and she had to take a step as she arched her back to make up for the terrible angle. 

“Hold on.” He broke off the kiss for a second, and pulled her over to the large metal box that controlled the building’s AC.

He grabbed her by her hips, getting one of his fingers stuck in one of her belt loops, and set her on the box. 

“Much better.” He smirked, and then picked up where they had left off. 

Until they heard, 

“You have literally no sense of self-preservation, do you?” Batman was on a nearby roof, and they both jumped. “Highly disappointed in you two.”

“Me too, honestly.” Marinette teased him. 

“Hey.” Robin gave her a betrayed look. “You too?”

“I asked you to take me home, and yet here I am, on a roof, instead.” She pointed out, smirking at him. 

“She’s right. Get going, and come back fast.” Batman disappeared, and they got one last quick kiss in before going back to being Robin and Some Person. 

* * *

  
  


“Hey, just to be clear, we all did agree on the whole no-going-to-prom thing, right?”

“Yup.” Marinette nodded.

“Yeah.” Damian agreed.

“Why?” Marinette asked. 

“Oh, no reason.” Jon shrugged. “But we did say we would find something insanely better to do instead, so what are we doing?”

“Six flags?” Marinette offered.

“The closest one is in New England, we would have to go for a whole weekend.” Damian pointed out.

“So let’s go, then.”

“That would require someone to come with us for Adult Supervision.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Right.”

“Or you could just come over and play video games?” Jon shrugged. 

“True. The bar for doing something more awesome than hanging out with the other kids in our class is so low it may as well be on the ground. Video games sound _so_ much better than talking with them.” Marinette laughed hollowly.

“Point proven. Let’s do it.”

  
  
  



	50. Chapter 50

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to anyone who may have already read this chapter when I uploaded it on accident. And the deleted it. Here to is again.

“I do believe this makes it D’s turn to pick the music.” Jon said as he drove them to the fairgrounds the next weekend, Memorial Day weekend. 

“Oh fabulous.” Damian grabbed the aux cord, and plugged it into his phone. 

Marinete recognized the song in the first few seconds, mostly because Bella liked to play in th shower quite often. 

“Is this Todrick Hall?” She gave him a confused look. She didn’t think he would be into that kind of music. 

“He makes me feel like a pretty princess and a damn queen.” Damian stared her in the eyes, daring her to say something else about his music taste. 

“I wasn’t trying to offend you, damn, I was just… expecting something else?”

“What, like My Chemical Romance?” He deadpanned. 

“Maybe?”

“Yeah, well, I listen to My Chem too, and the album Hesitant Alien, I just happen to like this guy too.” He shrugged.

“Nice to know.” She nodded, and went back to looking out the window. 

When they got there, a sheep dog show was in the process of starting, and Damian dragged them both over to watch it. 

“There are multiple ones that happen, D, we don’t need to watch  _ every _ one of-”

“I want to watch the good boys, Jon!” He insisted. “I want to watch the good doggies play with the sheep!”

“What’s a sheep dog show?” Marinette asked. Damian gasped, and pulled them along faster. 

“Border collies that are trained to herd sheep around, they have competitions where they see which dog can make the sheep go through an obstacle course the fastest.” He explained, and they found a spot along the fence to watch from. 

“I’m sure this is great and all, but I can’t  _ fucking _ see.” Marinette complained, her two tall friends easily looking over the shoulders of the people in front of them. 

“Oh, shit.” Jon picked her up, and held her over his head, letting her situate herself so she was sitting on his shoulders. “Better?”

“All good.” She put one of her hands on the top of his head for balance. 

“Cool.” He let go, and just held onto her knees so she didn’t fall. 

Finally, she could see. 

She watched as the dogs moved in a way that maneuvered the sheep around one fence, in between two others, over a little bridge, and into an enclosure. 

It was actually pretty fun to watch, she had to admit. 

Until she kinda got hungry. 

“Oh my god, so I smell doughboys?” Jon turned his head really fast, and Marinette had to grab onto his hair not to fall over. 

“Oh, probably.”

“What’s a doughboy?” She asked, and Jon sighed dramatically. 

“I think we're gonna come back here again, just so Marinette catches up with all the American traditions.” He said. 

“Doesn’t answer my question.”

“Imagine a waffle, but less crispy and flatter.” Damian tried. 

“So a pancake?”

“Less thick, more fluffy, and much greasier.” Jon added.

“Huh?”

“Let’s just go get one.” Damian finally pried himself away from the dogs, and Jon held onto her a little tighter as he started to walk towards a stand that had doughboys. 

As they stood in line, she pulled out her phone. 

“Ugh, my arm isn’t long enough, D you take the picture.” She handed him her phone, and he took it. 

He offered a small smile, Jon stuck his tongue out, and she smiled as she giggled at them. 

He took a few pictures and handed it back to her. 

It was their turn, and they stepped up to the window. 

“Jon!” Marinette shrieked as he walked under the awning and smacked her face into a metal bar.

“Oh shit!” He took a step back, and apologized profusely. “I’m so sorry M I forgot you were up there I really didn’t mean it, oh fuck, oh no-”

She laughed as she rubbed the spot she had been hit on the side of her head. Damian just shook his head at them as he paid for three doughboys. 

“J, you can’t stop apologizing, it’s fine.” She rolled her eyes at him. 

“M, come here a second.” She walked over to where Damian was standing by a window. 

“You want butter on it, kiddo?” A woman in the stand asked. She shrugged. 

“I don’t know,  _ Chouchou _ , do I want butter?” She asked. 

“Your call, honestly.”

“No, I mean, what’s your opinion on butter?”

“It helps the toppings stick better.” He offered. 

“Sure, I want butter.” She answered. 

“Ok.” She nodded, and handed her a buttered doughboy. 

“Ok, here are the toppings,” Damian started, “This white shit is confectionary sugar. We love this. It’s sugary goodness.”

“Good.” She nodded. She knew what it was. 

“Cinnamon.” He slapped a tall brown bottle. “We also love this on a doughboy. Very good.”

“Noted.”

“This shit is maple syrup. I do not understand people who want this on a doughboy.” He looked her dead in the eyes, through her sunglasses she had stolen from him, and she nodded sharply.

“Syrup people are strange, also noted.”

“Good.”

“Ok.” She let him put the appropriate amount of topping on it, and they all sat down at a picnic table. 

“You are getting it  _ all over  _ your face.” Damian fussed as he wiped sugar off of her cheek. “ _ How  _ are you getting  _ this much _ sugar on your face?”

“You’re the one who put this much on it, like a dumbass.” She pointed out.

“Excuse me, but that is the _ perfect _ amount of sugar, or it  _ would _ be, if you didn’t _ spill  _ it everywhere.” He argued. 

“You two are an embarrassment to bring literally anywhere.” Jon rolled his eyes at them. 

“Hey.” They frowned at him. 

“Yeah. We know. But that doesn’t make it less hurtful.” Marinette threw a piece of grease paper at him. 

She happily munched her way through the rest of the doughboy before one of them pointed out they could play a few games. 

“Ooh.” Marinette threw her paper plate away, and they picked a balloon popping game. 

Marinette got twenty of the darts, and nailed every single one of them. 

Damian,  _ not  _ to be outdone, got twenty-five in a row. 

She scowled at him, and got ten more. 

Eventually, between the two of them, and Jon facepalming in the background at their disregard of how much money they were spending, they managed to pop every balloon on the board to the surprise and stress of the game attendant. 

They both popped forty between them, and the attendant couldn’t put more up at the speed they were popping them. 

“Who won?” Damina glared at her. 

“I believe the lady did, sir.” She said, more than a little bit in distress. 

“Ha!” Marinette cheered, and the woman handed her a giant teddy bear. 

He smiled at her as she hugged it, but pretended to go back to scowling over losing when she looked up to stick her tongue out at him. 

“Next time, I’m in charge of controlling how much you two rich idiots spend.” 

“Hey. Technically, I don’t even have access to my own damn money. It’s stuck in europe.”

“Online banking.” Damian pointed out, as if it were obvious.

“Oh shit you right.” She nodded, and gave it some thought. “I really never did look into that.”

“Still. I’m in charge next time.” They found a water game, where whoever aimed the water stream at the dot the longest without moving it won. 

They all three started a game, along with a few other people who were already there. 

“Wait! Three more!” Bella hopped up onto a stool with two of her friends, Amanda Ruseeld and Cady Pierce. 

“Alright!” The attendant added them to the game, and started it up. 

Superboy versus Robin verus Black Cat and also a bunch of other people. 

What could possibly go wrong?

“Ooh, looks like we have a tie!” The person running it said, and gave a little toy to Marinette and Jon.

Damian was 0 for 2.

“Damn.” Bella sighed, and they went to find a ring toss game. 

“You guys coming too?” Jon asked. 

“Nah, we’re gonna go back to the rides, we only joined because we saw you guys.” Amanda shrugged.

“Ah, cool. Well, see you later, then!”

“Bye!” Cady waved as they walked away.

“Oh good they’re gone.” Damian said, putting an arm around Marinette as they headed to the ring toss game.

“If it was just Bella, you would not have objected.” Marinette pointed out.

“True.” He nodded. “She is acceptable.”

“What, and Amanda isn’t?”

“Not really, no.” She snorted at him. 

* * *

They went back the second time a few days later. 

It was Marinette’s turn to play music again. 

Damian was curious as to what she would play. 

The last time she had played something, it had been pretty sad and depressing. 

She had said it had reflected her mood. 

But now, she was doing a little better. 

He wondered what happy Marinette liked to listen to.

“Hey.” They pulled into the school parking lot, and she jumped in, climbing over him, and sitting between them. 

“It cannot be comfortable all scrunched up in that middle seat.” Jon pointed out. 

“Yeah, well, first of all, I’m short as hell, and second, I’d rather be in the front than in the back.” She argued. 

“Valid.” Damian shrugged. “Plus, I like you up here too.” 

“Awe, thanks.” She smiled, and took the aux cord from him.

He blinked at the screen. 

“Kanye? Seriously?”

“Hey!” She defended herself, “It’s a Stromae song, just the Kanye remix! I don’t normally listen to him, just this song!”

Then Bomboclaat by Lartiste, and Corazon by Maître Gims, Lil Wayne, and French Montana. 

“You… you really…”

“Hey, I didn’t give you shit for Todrick Hall you will not give me shit for my Gims.” She glared at him. 

“Yeah. Right.” He mumbled. “Ok.”

  
  



	51. Chapter 51

“Hey.” Chloé called her a few days later. 

“Hey, I…” She didn’t know what to tell her, what to talk about.

So she told the truth. 

“I haven’t talked to Kagami in a long time, have you talked to her recently?” She asked. 

They had somehow grown apart. 

Despite how deeply they cared about each other, they slowly lost contact. 

You can love someone, want to watch them grow, and still grow apart anyway. 

“She’s gonna start going to school in Tokyo soon. She graduated early.”

“Oh. Interesting.”

“Yeah.” They fell into silence again. 

“Anything interesting happen at school?”

“No, not really. Just everyone fighting each other all the time, and yet still somehow the blame all falls on you. I really don’t know how they do it honestly. It’s just so ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, how they-” She kept talking but Marinette wasn’t listening. 

Her parents had sent her away to make things better. 

Yet no matter how far away she went, nothing changed. 

The problem still remained the same, even when she was gone. 

“Hey? Are you there?”

“I’m here.” she mumbled, but her head was elsewhere. 

Very far elsewhere. 

“Shit. what I said upset you didn’t it?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you didn’t mean it. But I have to go now, ok?”

“Sorry.” She mumbled, and hung up.

* * *

She wondered what to do now. 

She felt everything and nothing all at once. 

Her mind was racing, but it was going nowhere. 

She just felt like ick. 

“Kid, you ok?” Plagg asked quietly. Bella was sleeping, but they didn’t know how light of a sleeper she was. 

“No.”

“Those nasty kids again?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to cataclysm them all?”

“No.” She giggled slightly. “That would be mean.”

“What they’re doing is mean.”

“Not if I’m there, it’s not. Then it’s just stupid.”

“But you can’t stop them from being stupid and you feel bad about that?”

“Yeah.” She closed her eyes, and curled up into her pillow. 

“Even though that’s dumb of you to think.”

“I know.” 

“Call glasses.” Plagg demanded.

“Jon?”

“Is he the one with the glasses?” he asked in an antagonizing tone

“Yes.” 

“Then yes. Call him.”

“Why?”

“Because you are nervous and he’s your friend.”

“Ok.” She wiped at a year, and headed to the bathroom. 

* * *

“M? What the fuck?” He answered, tired. 

“Bad thing happened.” She mumbled. That snapped him awake. 

“Who, what, where, why and how?”

“Chloé called me, to talk about things, and reminded me about everything that was happening. And she said… something pretty upsetting. It… it wasn’t intended to be upsetting, it just was. An accident, honestly. But…” 

“So this isn’t a superboy problem?

“No, no, this is a Jon problem.”

“Cool.” He sat back down, nervousness disappearing. “What happened next?”

“I started to spiral, thinking about all the awful things I could have prevented if i had just tried a little harder to fix things, and not been so angry and sad and if I could have just fixed things then maybe-”

“You can’t fix people, Marinette. No matter how badly you think you can, you can’t.” He reminded her. 

“But I can try.” She insisted.

“No, not really. People only get better when they want to. Those kids clearly don’t want to. And you are _absolutely not_ at fault for what they want for themselves. Got it?”

“Yeah.” She whispered. “No.” 

He sighed. 

“You want to come over and watch Mulan? That movie strangely seems to make you feel better.”

“I don’t really feel like moving.”

“Fine. I’m coming to you.” 

* * *

Twenty minutes later, she heard a knock on her window. 

She jumped, and there was Jon sticking his tongue out at her and posing. She laughed. 

“Hey.” She opened the window. 

“Hey.” He climbed in, and threw his backpack onto her stuffed animal pile she had collected from their time at the fair. 

All washed, of course. 

Damian said Alfred would have been worried if she didn’t let him run them through the wash. 

“You really came over.” She mumbled. 

“What the fuck?” Bella mumbled. 

“Hey Bells.” Jon waved. She narrowed her eyes at him as she slowly woke up.

“What the fuck?” She repeated.

“M was sad so I came over to play her a movie.”

“Oh.” she rolled back over and wet back to sleep. 

He pulled his laptop out of his backpack, and set up the movie. 

With headphones, of course. 

She leaned against her headboard, holding the giant teddy bear she had won in her arms, her best friend leaning on her. 

She took a picture, and posted it. 

* * *

Damian wondered why the hell his phone was dinging at one in the morning.

Then he realised it was because he had post notifications for Marinette turned on. 

She had a picture of herself and Jon in the dark with christmas lights dangling in the background. 

There was a strange glow coming from behind the camera, and based on the caption, he figured it was a laptop glow. 

**TheOneWhoRisesforBread** _When you have a mental breakdown so your best friend comes over in the middle of the night to play you your favorite movie. Literally my favorite person._

**TheBestWayne** _Rude._

 **TheBestWayne** _But still cute._

 **TheOneWhoRisesforBread** **_@TheBestWayne_** _Me cute or Jon cute?_

 **TheBestWayne** _@_ ** _TheOneWhoRisesforBread_** _Jon cute, obviously_.

He went back to sleep.

  
  



	52. Chapter 52

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Running out of ideas quick help  
> How do I end this.  
> I want to come up with a nice solid ending but I need a way to get there first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> half cute half sexy mini chapter.

“Oh you have got to be kidding me.” Marinette scowled as she sat on the counter in his kitchen. “This is a crime. No, this is a felony. A criminal crime. Truly a sinful criminal crime.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, M.” Damian rolled his eyes.

“HAVING A COOKIE JAR WITH NO COOKIES IN IT IS A LIE, DAMIAN. IT IS A LIE. AND LIARS GO TO HELL FOR THEIR SINFUL WAYS.” She snapped at him. 

“It’s just a piece of pottery-”

“It is a lie! I… I should… I should call Batman on you!” She crossed her arms, scowling at him. 

He gave her a look of utter disbelief. 

“Call Batman on who?” Grayson walked in, extremely confused. 

“I’m yelling at Gordon to fire up the bat signal to tell him that Damian has a cookie jar with no cookies in it. Like a LIAR!” Grayson gasped, and looked at Damian in horror. 

“How dare! I shall arrest him at once!” He opened a junk drawer, and grabbed a pair of handcuffs. 

Marinette dropped the act for only a second, slightly confused. 

“I know this shouldn;t throw me off as much as it did, but… you just… keep those around?” She giggled. 

“Yes.” Dick nodded firmly. “You never know when someone might be lying about the contents of the cookie jar.” 

“A liar!” Marinette jumped off the counter, picking up the charade again. “A traitor to all of mankind!”

“You two are so stupid.” Damian grumbled as he willingly let Grayson out him in the stupid handcuffs. 

“Should we bring him downtown, Marinette?” 

“Where the fuck-”

“Downtown for his crimes!” Marinette cheered. 

“You know this is a completely solvable problem-”

“Let’s go!” Dick haled him to his feet, and he sighed as they pulled him down the hall to the dining room. 

“Alright, look, you Mr. Criminal Man.” Marinette said as he was sat in a seat, Dick sitting across from him, playing Good Cop. Apparently, that made M his Bad Cop.

“Yes?” He gave up, and played along. 

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’m sorry?” He tried. She rubbed her chin, nodding and humming. 

“Do you think that attones for his sins, Grayson?”

“No, I don’t, actually.”

“Oh?”

“Are you two seriously going to sit there and sentence me like a pair of idiots and-”

“Silence, Mr. Criminal Man!” Marinette yelled at him. He sighed, and shut up. 

He actually kinda liked playing pretend. 

Even if it was stupid as hell. 

“What do you suppose we sentence him to, Captain Cheng?”

“I think… he attones for his treacherous sins by baking cookies for the cookie jar.”

“Good thinking.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant Grayson.” She leaned on the table. “So. Criminal Man.”

“Yeah, babes?”

“I want chocolate chip cookies. Extra chocolate chips. Maybe a little extra peanut butter. Maybe. I think.”

“Do you want it or not?”

“SHUT UP!”

“Ok.”

“Make the woman some cookies, Criminal Man.” Dick shook his head at them. Then he got up and left. 

“Hey wait a second, you’re just gonna leave me here-” Dick walked out, leaving him there. 

“Yeah. You’re smart. You figure a way out of them.”

“Seriously? You won’t be a  _ little _ bit more helpful?”

“Make me cookies. Then _ maybe _ you can try to put those to good use.” She teased, leaving him flustered, and left. 

“Great. Just great.”

* * *

  
  


She was doing it again. 

She sat on his bed, staring at his tv, and completely ignoring him. 

Unintentionally, of course.

She would never give him the cold shoulder on purpose. 

“Hey did you eat lunch today?” He asked her, not yet realising the state she was in.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, food in the fridge.” She mumbled. He paused. 

“Can you… can you hear me?”

“Oh I don’t know, ask Bella. Maybe she has one.” 

_ Has one what? _

“Marinette, what color is the sun?”

“Hm, maybe Tim knows?” She blinked at the screen. 

Someone had gotten her Call of Duty to try. 

He was starting to detest whoever gave her that game. 

“Huh.” He sat down next to her, and studied her face. She didn’t seem to be moving. 

He wondered what would happen if he tried to move her in this state. 

He gave it a go. 

He picked her up, and pulled her onto his lap. 

She obliged, wiggling so she got comfortable. Without breaking eye contact with his television. 

What a strange person. 

“You are so silly, you know that?” He mumbled, watching her character kick ass at whatever the hell she was kicking ass at.

“Sure, yeah, whatever you want.”

He snorted, and then decided to use her spacy mentality as a chance to try something.

He leaned down, and put his mouth directly next to her ear. 

“Do you have any idea what I’m gonna do as soon as you put that controller down?” She hummed her acknowledgment, not actually listening. 

He pulled the edge of her shirt up slightly and slowly ran one of his abnormally cold fingers across her warm stomach, back and forth, just barely touching her.

She didn’t shiver. 

She didn’t even flinch. 

“Mh, I think you want to listen to me _ real _ carefully.” He hummed quietly into her ear. 

“Huh?” She grunted in response. 

He moved his hands a little lower. 

Just under the waistline of her jeans.

“You put that game controller away and look at me, and I think I can-”

“Dammit, my character died.” She snapped, and threw the controller onto his floor. 

He looked up to see she was right. 

She had died. 

She was scowling at his tv until she finally realised where his freezing cold fingers were. 

“I don’t know what the _fuck_ you were saying, because I was _very_ out of it, but… say it again.”

  
  



	53. Chapter 53

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Running out of inspiration.   
> This isn't the end of the story, though!  
> There is more!  
> It's just starting to feel... forced.   
> And I don't want that.   
> So I'm gonna hold off on writing *too* much more, so that we get some QUALITY content on here.   
> I don't want anything less than QUALITY.

“Ugh, finals are gonna kill me next week.” Bella complained as she threw on her clothes, and Marinette froze. 

Finals meant the end of school. 

End of school meant going back to Paris. 

And being away from Damian. 

And Jon. 

And being close to her old classmates. 

As badly as she had wanted to go back home, as much as she pretended she still wanted to go back home, and as badly as she wished she could go home without fear, she… couldn’t. 

She couldn’t admit that she didn’t want to go back, either. 

She wanted to pretend like she was still as oblivious about the source of her pain, but she had no idea how much longer she could keep up the charade. 

Her guess was less than a week at best. 

She knew deep down it was probably less than a day. 

* * *

She had her mother on the phone a few minutes later. 

“Marinette?”

“Hey, mom.” She mumbled. “I was just… wondering. About summer plans.” She said as she grabbed her backpack, sticking her chemistry book in it. 

“Oh honey, I’ve been looking into what to do with you, but all of my plans just seem to be falling through right now. I’m trying to find a good long-term summer camp at best, all of the people I’ve been trying to get you to stay with just seem to be… busy.” Her mother sounded guilty. 

She felt as awful as Sabine sounded. 

It was not a fun conversation. 

But it was one that had to be had. 

“What if I find someone? Here in Gotham? To let me stay with them?”

“Well, I don’t really know, I don’t like the idea of having you with someone i don’t know, but-”

“Trust me. I can find someone.” She assured her, and hung up. 

* * *

“Hey.” She opened a window after school as Black Cat, and climbed through. 

Jason screamed, and fell backwards onto his ass. 

“Kon’s out of Cheese Whiz and Tim won’t buy me any, do you happen to have any Cheese Whiz?”

Jason put his head in his hands on the floor, and sighed. 

“Shit kid, you can’t sneak up on me.”

“What, or you’ll shoot me?” She deadpanned, opening the closest cabinet, hunting for Cheese Whiz. 

“Yes.”

“Good fucking luck with that.” She grabbed the Cheeze Whiz and jumped out the window she came in.

* * *

“Is too early in the week to have a mental breakdown?” Jon sighed as he stared at a copy of the periodic table. 

“It’s Tuesday. If you haven't already had one, I think if anything it’s too late.” Marinette responded, looking at her notes. 

“Oh no.” He sighed, and the bell rang. 

“Where the hell is Damian?”

“Probably already took the final, probably went home.”

“How?”

“He does as he pleases and doesn’t want us cheating, that’s probably how.”

“True.” Marinette grumbled as she walked in the classroom door. 

He was sitting in his seat, bouncing one of his legs, and twirling a pencil in his hand. 

“Yo.” Marinette said, offended. 

He ignored her, wrote down his final anwer, and stood up. 

“I’m sorry, but he had me come in early so we didn’t cheat.” He shrugged apologetically, and gave her a kiss on the top of her head before walking out to take one for a different class. 

“What an absolute-” Jon was cut off. 

“You all three sit so close I was worried about splitting you up making you all upset so I had him take it first, and you two are capable of sitting together without causing a scene.” Mr. Frost pointed out.

“Huh.” Marinette thought about it for a second. “Yeah, you have a point.”

They took their seats, and the final was started. 

Marinette looked down at her paper. 

She filled out all the one’s she could, and as soon as Mr. Frost was busy with a student, she gave Jon  _ a look _ . 

“Swap.” He said so quietly no normal person could hear, but they both had enhanced hearing, they didn’t need to. 

They changed papers, but they also changed pencils. 

Couldn’t have two different pencils answering different questions. 

She filled out a few of the one’s he missed, and then did a few more. 

She corrected one that was wrong. 

They waited until he was distracted again to switch back. 

He had answered most of the one’s she had gotten wrong. 

But there were still two left. 

She erased them slightly, and re-wrote them so it looked closer to her handwriting. 

Then they passed them in. 

“You cheated, didn’t you?” Damian said as soon as he saw them. 

“Do you even have to ask?”

* * *

She was given a week after school ended to remove all of her belongings from the dorm. 

She moved them into the spare room in Conner’s apartment. 

It was the room Tim used when he was beyond stressed and needed somewhere to go. 

But now, it was her room. 

“Alright, kid.” Damian had offered she stay with him, he thought it was an obvious decision, but she knew her parents wouldn't like that. And here was a perfectly available Adult Figure. “Your parents have entrusted me with being your legal parental unit, and I promised to take care of you, so we need some ground rules.”

“Ok.”

“No going out by yourself at night.”

“Ok.”

“That includes the suit.”

“Uh-huh.” 

“No sneaking that boy in when I’m not around.” he said accusingly. She scoffed, and said, 

“You say  _ that boy _ as if you haven’t known him longer than I have.”

“You have to eat food. Real food, and frequently.” He moved on, ignoring her little jab. 

“Ok.”

“No stealing food from Jason if you can’t find it here. You go to the grocery store.”

“Fine.”

No killing people in the house.”

“ _ In _ the house?” She frowned. 

“Don’t let your flying cat eat all of my food.”

“Hey.” Plagg objected.

“Keep the flying things in their little box home when we have guests over, no matter  _ who  _ it is.”

“Understandable.” 

“We have namesss.” Sass scowled, and went back into the box. 

The Kwami’s had been helping her set things up. 

“Try not to make too many big messes in the bathroom with all that makeup stuff.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious!” He insisted. She giggled. “I am a serious adult who can seriously take care of a kid.”

“I’m seventeen.” 

“You are the size of a six year old.”

“I am not!”

“Are too.”

“Seriously? Three hours and you're already arguing?” Tim shook his head from the doorway.

“Shut up, Drake.” They said simultaneously. 

  
  



	54. Chapter 54

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

“I want a slushie.” Marinette mumbled, dead tired, in the backseat of the pickup truck. 

She was only in the backseat instead of the front because Bella was in the front. 

So her and Damian were in the back. 

“Like a convenience store slushie?” Bella frowned. “Like the polar pops from Circle K?”

“Yeah, one of those.” 

“There’s one that’s not too far out of the way from here, I think I can stop for a second.” Jon took a left, and parallel parked. 

“Whoo it’s chilly out here.” Marinette pulled up the hood of Damian’s sweatshirt, the one she had taken long before they even started dating, and pulled on the strings. 

“You look so cute in that, you know.” He said, kissing the top of her head through the hood. “You’re so small, you look like you're practically swimming in it.”

“Oh shut up.” She whacked him with one of the too-long sleeves. 

“No, never.”

They all got various colors of slushie, and were about to head back out when a group of people headed up to the doors. At first, they went to step back from the door to let them through first, until they realised they were holding weapons. 

“Shit.” Jon mumbled, and Bella fearfully took a few more steps back. 

They started yelling, and Damian gripped Marinette’s hand as he slowly started to pull her towards the back.

“We can’t leave.” She looked at him, scared, and knowing she was tragically right. 

“What?”

“Bella will notice, idiot.” She pointed out.

He just pulled her into a hug as they avoided the men with large knives and a few handguns. 

He tried to bury his face in the top of her head, watching their moves through other means. 

Until one of them took extra notice of him. 

“Well well well, I didn’t think kidnapping and ransom was on the schedule tonight, but look what we have here.”

“What do we got, Jax?” Another guy asked, who was busy receiving death glares from Jon.

“It looks like we have the baby Wayne.” The guy, supposedly named Jax, responded. 

“Ooh.” A third one crowed, “Wonder how much we could get out of that one.” He picked his head up to glare at the guy.

He felt something rise on his throat, and tried to shove it back down again.

“What do you think he’s worth? A million? Two?” Jax grinned menacingly.

He tried to remain calm. 

He would not give this asshole the satisfaction of upsetting him.

“Maybe much more than that.” Marinette squeezed him tighter, her face buried in his chest, and he squeezed back. 

“What could the girl be worth? Maybe twenty bucks?” He joked. 

That was it. 

“Leave her alone.” He growled, and as the man stepped closer, he inhaled and passed out. 

_ What the fuck? _

But then the guy in front him dropped to the ground, and they both jumped. 

“Holy shit, Damian.” Marinette mumbled. “I think you quite literally scared him to death.” She turned to look at him. 

“I don’t think that was fearthat did that.” He whispered, a little afraid, worrying she might go down next. 

But he had a little bit of a gut feeling that whatever he did to that guy couldn’t happen to her. 

“What happened? What did you do to him?” Oh, they really had their attention now.

“I didn’t do anything.” 

* * *

Marinette was trying not to panic. 

She could feel Damian’s heartbeat through the fabric, and she focused on it so she would calm down. 

But then they noticed who he was. 

And she squeezed him so hard she was afraid she might break him. 

But he squeezed her back, and she knew it might be a little bit ok.

But then he started talking. 

She felt something large crumple to the floor. 

And then she tried to make a snarky comment about scaring him to death. 

It didn’t go over well. 

The two other guys started to look at them. 

“Jon, take Bella and get out of here.” She whispered. “While they’re distracted.”

“I can’t leave you.” He whispered back.

“You aren’t leaving us. We’ll be fine.” She insisted, and noticed him start to pull her towards the door. 

They played distraction as he got the three other people in the building out. 

“You didn’t do anything? What do you mean you didn’t do anything, he clearly just-” The second guy stopped, and seemed to fall short of breath as he started to wheeze. 

“Mason? Mason, you good?” The second guy asked, eying his partner suspiciously. Then he dropped to the floor as well. 

“No…” The second guy mumbled, and then all three of them were down and out. 

* * *

As soon as they were no longer considered threats, he picked her up and pulled her away from them, towards the front of the building. 

“M baby, are you ok?” It was a dumb nickname, he still stuck by it being a dumb nickname, and he hated dumb nicknames, but he was just so used to his father calling Selina ‘baby’ he accidentally just picked it up. 

And stuck with it. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She mumbled, clearly not fine. “Gonna be kinda hard to explain this, though.”

“Yeah, I know, but my main concern right now is you.”

“Isn’t it always?” She looked up at him, and he put two fingers under her chin, lifting her face so he could study her eyes, looking to see what level of horrified they were. 

“Not the time for jokes, M.” He frowned, and then gave her a quick kiss to make sure she was really ok. 

She blinked a little, and then started to calm down. 

Ah ha. So that’s the key.

He did once more for good measure, and they headed out the front.

They had no idea what state they left those three guys in.

* * *

An ambulance came by, and they only knocked them out. 

They had no idea for how long, though. 

He lied, and said he used the shoulder move where he squeezed it and they passed out. 

He just hoped they didn’t do any blood work. 

That would be difficult to explain. 

* * *

“I literally cannot let you out of the house ever.” Conner sighed as she walked back in through the door. 

“Hey, I’m fine.” She defended herself as she grabbed a water cup. 

“Yeah, I know your fine, you freaky superhuman you, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying like some parental figure or something.” She tried not to smile as she took a big gulp of water, smiling would make her spill it all over herself. 

“Thanks, Parental Unit.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He offered her a hug before she went back into her room.

The paperwork for him to officially be her legal guardian went in the next morning.

“You will never guess who won the bet we made over Christmas.” Tim, the impartial, grinned at the dinner table. 

“No.” Steph said, in minor horror. She had thirty dollars on the line, here. 

“Oh yeah.” Tim grinned, and procured a copy of a screenshot of the papers. 

He had known it was happening, but he hadn’t told anyone. 

In case they used their connections to stop it so they could win. 

“Oh you have got to be kidding me.” Jason frowned. 

He had quite clearly lost.

So had Cass. 

And Barbara.

And Duke. 

And Stephanie.

And Damian. 

“Our winner here, as of last night, is one Dick Grayson.” Dick frowned, tilting his head slightly. 

“What are you talking about?” He was lost in this conversation, he had only walked in about ten seconds prior and did not know what the conversation was about.

“Last Christmas.” Steph grumbled. 

“What about last Christmas?”

“We all made bets about who was going to get Marinette custody first, Brce or Clark. As a joke, you said Conner. Congratulations, Dick, one Conner Kent is officially Marinette’s legal guardian, making you the proud owner of a hundred and twenty new dollars. 

“Shit.” Duke grumbled. He was the least sore loser out of all of them, and was usually pretty cool about losing. 

He was not cool about losing twenty bucks. 

“I did that?” He frowned, as Tim counted out the dollars and handed them to him. 

“Yup. ended up saving you a lot, too.”

“Huh.” 

  
  



	55. Chapter 55

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters before I've used up my back-up chapters. This is one of them.

The news was on in the background as she munched her cereal. 

“Gotham continues to be terrorised by this sudden heatwave, people are claiming to be frying eggs on the sidewalk.” A slightly amused woman on the television said. 

Tim, who didn’t appear to have slept in a week, frowned at the tv. 

“Who is this ‘heatwave’ and why hasn’t Batman stopped him from egging the sidewalks?” He mumbled. Marinette and Plagg gave him matching confused looks. “Dastardly villain.” 

“Uh…” She went to correct him, but decided against it. 

Conner just shook his head at him from the side of the room. 

“One of these days.” He grumbled. “One of these days he’s gonna say something so stupid no one will take him seriously for ten years.”

“Is that a prediction or a prophecy?” Marinette joked, and put her dishes away in the sink, rinsing them out first.

“Both?”

* * *

She was sitting under the ac, letting it blast directly into her face. 

A side effect of the cat miraculous was that she was now very hot, all the time.

Sure, she wanted to sit in the sun, like a cat, but not in a heatwave. 

In a heatwave, she was  _ not  _ happy about being hot. 

She likes being  _ warm, _ not  _ hot. _

There was a difference. 

“You look ridiculous.” Damian said from where he was sitting at the breakfast bar, working on his laptop. 

“Ridiculously  _ hot. _ ” She shrieked, upset about the heat. 

“No, ridiculous  _ and _ hot. Not ridiculously hot.” She looked for something to throw at him. She came up empty-handed. 

“Shut up.” Was all she had. 

“No.”

A few minutes later, he sighed, and nearly slammed his head into the countertop. 

“What?” She asked, worried for his head. 

“They’re making me go to another one of those treacherous Gala things.” He groaned into the fake marble.

“Ooh, sucks to be you.” She teased. 

“M, please, come up with a reason to not make me go?”

“Yeah, sure I’ll go with you.” She cackled. 

“No.” He gasped, utterly betrayed. “No, you don’t understand. You can’t make me go. They’re just downright awful.” He sat up, and gave her a horrified look. 

“I’ll go watch you suffer.” She shrugged. 

“You are the worst. Top 10 Anime Betrayals.” He grumbled, and went back to glaring at his computer. 

“Yeah, I know. The absolute worst.”

“Hey.” She said after a few minutes of silence. 

“What?”

“Come here.”

“No, you’re an asshole.”

“But I want hugs.”

“Assholes don’t get hugs.” She gave up, sighing, but about thirty seconds later, he got up and sat down, cross-legged on the floor. 

He balanced his laptop on one knee, and she grinned as she crawled to put her head on the other one. 

“Shut up.” He said at her satisfied smirk. 

“I didn’t say anything.” She defended herself. 

“No, but I can _ feel  _ you laughing at me.”

“Would I ever?”

“Yes. Yes you would ever.”

* * *

A few days later, she talked to Chloé again. 

She updated her on moving into her best friend's older brother's place, how he was like a brother of her own, and how much fun she was having living in Gotham. 

And about how much crime she had come across living in Gotham. 

Which led to telling her about the store incident. 

She left out the whole ‘Damian can leak poison if threatened’ thing, and just said they snuck out while the guys were distracted. 

“Only you, Marinette.” Chloé sighed. 

When they were done talking, she set the phone down. 

This time, the conversation ended, and she didn’t actually feel like crying for once. 

Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Damian. 

* * *

“M?” He called her only a few seconds after she hung up with Chloé. 

“Yeah?” She could hear the stress in his voice, “What’s up?”

“I just…” He didn’t say anything else.

“DO you need something? What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Can you…” He took a shaky breath. 

“You want me to tell you a story?”

“Yeah.” He whispered. 

“Ok, uh, so um…” She tapped her fingers, and thought for a second. “Ah! I got it. Ok, so, when I was seven, in what you guys would call second grade, I used to have really long hair. Like  _ really _ long hair. And we were listening to some guy about stranger danger, and it was super boring, and two of my old friends, Nino and Kim, were sitting behind me, and like halfway through the talk I hear them laughing, and I was wondering when they were laughing about, but I didn’t really care, and then they did a few more times, and eventually, I went to turn around and ask what was so funny, because I was really bored and didn’t want to listen to the lecturing guy anymore, and I noticed that my hair, I had put it up in a braid, I noticed that my braid felt super heavy, and that they had stuffed it full of pencils. They had been laughing because they had been trying to see who could stick more pencils in my hair before I noticed.” It was a better memory of those two. 

“Huh.” Was all he answered with. 

“And then, one time, when we were probably about ten, we were all in the art room for some other boring lecture that I, despite being really into art, kinda didn’t want to listen to, but we were all there anyway, and the teacher said that once we were in we were in and couldn’t leave, but I had brought a lunchbox full of snacks, and I had left it in the other room, and she wouldn’t let me leave to go get it, and I was really hungry, and so was Nino, and…” She smiled as she looked down at her bed sheets, hugging a stuffed toy, “And the art teacher noticed us complaining about being hungry, beicase, you know, they guy doing the talking was from elsewhere, it wasn’t the teacher herself giving the demonstration, anyway, we noticed we were hungry, and she gave us… guess.”

“Hm?”

“Guess what she gave us. To eat.”

“I don’t know.” He offered weakly.

“She had recently gotten into the whole ‘american foods’ things, and she just straight-up gave us a jar of peanut butter and two plastic spoons. That was what she gave us. To eat. For a snack.”

“Oh.” She could tell he was slightly better, but not much.

But not much. 

“And now that I live here, I can tell that even normal people do not eat peanut butter as just a light snack, that is just ridiculous.” 

“Yeah. Ridiculous.”

She tried to think of another story that could maybe cheer him up. 

She thought about it before going with a story about how one time her and Alya had tricked another class member into thinking they were going crazy by shoving her in a locker every time they got close and pretending they hadn’t seen her all day. 

It was a pretty funny story. 

Eventually, he fell asleep on the other end, and she hung up so she didn’t get in trouble with her parents for a long call. 

* * *

She spent the next day online, finding a way to move all of her money to a local bank. 

She had left it in Paris, but she had left it in a localized bank in Paris. 

She needed access to it here. 

She also needed a credit card, but that was a problem for another day. 

Plus, she wasn’t 18 yet. 

So yet still, a problem for another day. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just released this said 'shocking her in a locker' and not 'shoving her in a locker' and honestly it was not supposed to be that horrifying. #whoops.


	56. Chapter 56

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes hi hello I'm back to this one again.   
> I think I need to set up a rotation system for all my different fics.  
> but knowing me, I wouldn't stick to it.

Marinette almost didn’t believe herself when she saw her walking down the sidewalk. 

The only reason she knew she wasn’t hallucinating was the other girl saw her too. 

“Dupain-Cheng?” Chloé tilted her head in slight confusion. 

“Chloé?” She asked weakly. Jon looked back and forth between them in slight confusion. 

This was just supposed to be a walk to a bakery and back.

Nothing dramatically emotional was supposed to happen. 

But apparently, the universe had other plans. 

“Yeah, it’s me.” She responded, and she froze before running to her. 

Marinette laughed as she threw her arms around her former enemy. 

“It’s you!” She yelled, and started to cry. 

But she forgot that she had a slight growth spurt and they both fell to the cement as she practically tackled Chloé. “It’s really you.” Chloé seemed touched that she cared so much, even if she did just drag both of them to the dirty ground. 

“Yeah, I’m here. It’s me. I’m right here.” Chloé said as she sat up, pulling Marinette into a hug. “I missed you, Dupain-Cheng.”

“I missed you too.” People on the sidewalk had to walk around them as they hugged sitting in a pile of the ground. 

“So, M, who’s this?” Jon asked awkwardly. 

“Huh? Oh!” She jumped to her feet, a little embarrassed, and Chloé hugged her one more time before letting go. “This is Chloé, she used to kinda hate me but we’re really good friends now. She’s…”

“The only non-bitch?” The blond girl offered jokingly. 

“Ok, but like, the truth of that statement?” Marinette snorted, smirking. “Unbelievable.” She laughed. 

“Oof.”

“Wait, Chloé, why are you here?” She finally noticed the oddness of seeing her Parisian friend in Gotham. 

“Oh, summer internship.” She clapped, excited to talk about herself. “Mommy said I needed to get a summer job and I thought that that was nasty, but I signed up for this internship instead.”

“Really?”

“What, is seeing me doing something that hard to imagine?” She feigned offense. 

“I mean, kinda.”

Chloé awkwardly made conversation with Jon as they walked with her back to the apartment she was staying in as an intern for the summer. 

* * *

“Hey Conner, can I go visit a friend for a sleepover?”

“Depends, who is it?”

“Chloé B, she’s here working for the summer, she was a friend from Paris.” He gave her a strange look. 

“I thought you didn’t like anyone from Paris?” She scrunched her nose up. 

“I didn’t, but… Chloé’s different. Kinda.”

“Kinda?”

“Yeah, she… she was different. When the whole situation happened. She never really was as mean to me as everyone else was, and… it’s kinda a long story.”

“Huh.” He studied the small kid for a second, and then caved. “Yeah, I guess she’s fine then. Who else is gonna be there?”

“D and J and I think also Bella, my old roommate, if she wants to.”

“Oh, I’ve met Bella. But I’ve never met her parents, and I think it’s normal for someone to-”

“La la la can’t hear you.” She yelled as she left the stool and headed back to her room. 

“You have hearing that rivals my own, but go off I guess.” He laughed as she shut the door. 

* * *

“Alright. Damian, you look like a fun killer, so you don’t have to say yes, but does anyone else want to do shots?” Chloé asked, waving a blue bottle around. 

“Chlo, how the hell did you-”

“I mailed it to myself using mommy dearest’s information.” Marinette blinked, and then laughed. 

“Oh my god, you stole the Style Queen’s identity.” She cackled, and Chloé swatted her arm. 

“I’m down for shots, I’m legal where I’m from.” Bella pointed out.

“Me too.” Chloé grinned at her. 

Jon looked skeptical. 

Damian looked nervous. 

“Fuck it, I’m down.” Jon sat on a rug where Bella was dealing out cards. Chloé was digging for shot glasses.

“I’m not a fun killer.” Damian grumbled. 

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” Marinette pointed out. “And I won’t judge, even if Chloé will judge the hell out of you.” She gave him a pitiful shoulder pat. 

“Thanks babe.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Who wants to play never have I ever? For the shits, I mean?” Bella asked. 

Chaos ensued. 

* * *

“Alright, first things first: never have I ever been a magic-using superhero.” Bella started as she gave Chloé a strange look, apparently fully aware of the Queen Bee incident. 

“Ooh Queenie takes a shot.” Marinette yelled. 

“Ok Multi-Mouse, you’re taking one too.” Chloé shot back. 

Damian was glad he was not playing. 

“You bitch, she didn’t know about that.” Marinette scowled as she took her first shot, “I totally could have gotten away with that.”

“Butcha didn’t didcha!” Chloé teased. 

“Suck my ass, Bourgeois.”

“No.”

“Ok, who’s next?” Jon frowned.

“You.” Marinette decided. 

“Ok. Uh, never have I ever been to space.” He tried, 

“Bullshit.” Marinette whispered so the others couldn’t hear.

Damian only noticed because he was staring at her. 

“Ok, literally you can google the Startrain incident.” Chloé scowled at him, and once again the only two Parisians took a drink. 

“Wait, what?” Bella gave them a horrified look. “You two have been to space?”

“Hawkmoth accidentally sent us to space.” Marinette explained. “But Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Pegasus saved the day so it’s whatever.” She shrugged. 

“That’s… a strange thing to be casual about.” Damian pointed out, pulling her onto his lap.

“Whatever.” She sighed. “My turn. Never have I ever… gone kayaking.” Jon and Bella both took shots. Chloé was given a break. 

“Chloé?” Bella asked, looking at the girl she had met as if she were very important. “What do you got?”

“Never have I ever… jumped off the TVi tower outside of the bee suit.” She tried. 

“That is targeting me.” Marinette growled but took the shot anyway. “Bella again?”

“Uh, never have I ever had revenge sex?” Damian noticed Marinette’s instant look of shame as she contemplated reaching for the bottle. 

“M?!” Jon gave her a look of concern. 

She eventually caved, and grabbed the bottle for a shot. 

“Oh no.” Chloé gave her a sad look. “Don’t tell me-”

“Yeah.” She mumbled. 

“M baby are you ok?” Damian moved so she could look at him. 

“It was before I met you!” She insisted. 

“Yeah, no shit, I think I would know if it wasn’t, but you look as if you feel like shit, so are you ok?” She really did look extremely guilty. 

Like, very not ok guilty. 

“It was…”

“Kagami?” Chloé asked, her eyes wide. 

“Yeah.” Marinette confused. “Literally the day I broke up with Adrien, I hooked up with Kagami. It was… not my brightest decision.” She mumbled. 

He just wrapped his arms around her waist, and put his chin in her shoulder as she regretfully took the shot. 

“Oh goodness.” Jon mumbled. 

“Can we move onto a different game? I think this is too many shots too close together, I’m gonna get sick.” She mumbled. 

“Yeah, you should kinda maybe stop.” Damian pointed out. 

“Thank you, oh one voice of reason.” She leaned back into him. 

“Alright, let's play truth or dare with the occasion shot then.” Chloé offered. “Who wants to start?”

“I will.” Bella offered. “Marinette, truth or dare?”

“Truth?”

“Awkwardest place you’ve ever hooked up with someone?”

“Uh…. I think the bed of a dump truck takes that one.” She confessed. 

“What?” Chloé shrieked. “That is unsanitary!”

“Trust me, very few events of that day were planned. That was one of them that wasn’t planned. We really thought out none of that.” Damian frowned at the floor, thinking about that mission. What a weird mission that had been. 

Unofficial, of course. The JL still didn’t really have a solid grip on Black Cat’s whereabouts yet, and Conner wasn’t spilling. Neither were Batman and Robin. 

“Ok. Next question. Jon, truth or dare?”

  
  



	57. Chapter 57

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm back homies.   
> Anyway.   
> So a few chapter ago, like two weeks ago, someone commented something and they called me "She" and I git a little but upsetti and then people stared using "He" also without asking first. and I would like to take this time to remind people that there are more than two pronouns.   
> Literally none of you have asked me for my damn pronouns.   
> So, unsolicited, here they are.   
> I may have referred to myself as "him" in the past, but I am actually gender-fluid Non-Binary. My primary pronouns are they/them but SPECIFIC people have permission to use he/him and she/her on CERTAIN DAYS. 
> 
> Ya'll are not me. Ya'll are not my friends. Ya'll get to use they/them and not he/him despite my referring to myself as he/him occasionally. *I KNOW* the days that I'm feeling like a him or a her. YOU do not.
> 
> Please and thank you.   
> Love, Jae.

“Hello my little kitty.” Robin said from above her. 

“If poems about cats who chase birds are any part true, it is you, Robin, who is mine.” She smirked as she pulled the upside-down dangling boy into a kiss. 

He had a habit of hanging down from the curved lamp posts. He seemed to like doing that. 

She was bound to pull a Spider-Man eventually.

“Hm, as much I would like to do that again, I have come with bad news.”

“Oh?” She frowned at him. 

“The Justice League has deemed you either high-enough of a threat or ally that they have tasked me with informing you they wish to speak.”

“That truly is a tragedy.” She sighed. “What a shame my civilian identity just got a bunch of work dumped on her and she is suddenly  _ very _ busy.”

“Truly shameful indeed.” Robin agreed, not at all caring if she said yes or no. “I just hope she leaves enough time for someone who cares about her.”

“Who, Superboy?” She teased. He feigned great offense. 

“I am truly offended, Madame.” He dramatically put a hand to his chest. “That you would overlook someone such as myself to love and cherish you.”

“You are ridiculous.” She laughed, and he flipped off of the lamp. 

“Let me guess, utterly ridiculous?” He finished. 

It didn’t take him very long to figure out that Chloé said that quite frequently. 

“Very much so.” She grinned, and started to run through the streets. 

He picked up the chase. 

* * *

  
  


The first time Damian noticed it, it was the plant in the living room.

It had a few wilting leaves, and he felt sorry for the plant having little shriveled up leaves. 

But as he went to pluck them off, to give it room to grow more, the leaves… un-shriveled. 

He jumped in surprise, and Tikki laughed at him. 

“Tikki, what the hell.” He grumbled. 

“Sorry. It was funny watching you figure out you have creation powers.”

“That wasn’t creatier, I was just… Oh my god Ivy is  _ not _ going to like this.”

“I think she’ll love you.” Tikki shrugged. “A robin with plant powers, she would be all-over that.”

“She would murduer me, probably.”

“Well, don’t let her find out then, if you think that of her.” Tikki zipped off to go mess with something else. 

He figured it out the second time when he grabbed a seed that had fallen off of a plant in it’s pot just outside the Manor doors, and it burst to life in his hands. 

“What the fuck.” He stared at it. 

It had done several weeks worth of growing in a matter of seconds. 

This was… strange. 

He began to wonder what else he could do.

He tried not to look obvious as he headed out to the garden, and sat down in front of a bright pink flower. 

He cupped his hands around it, and attempted to change the color. 

Shockingly, he succeeded. 

The pale pink flower was now as deep blue as Marinette’s eyes. 

He grinned at his creation, and then focused again. 

He tinged the edges of the petals black, for Black Cat. 

He yawned, suddenly oddly tired, but shook it off as he plucked the flower. 

* * *

  
  


That night, she got a visit from Robin while she was cleaning up a mess on the balcony from a new project she was working on. 

“Hey you.” He was dangling upside down from the neighbors balcony above hers, using the yoyo as some sort of cat's cradle contraption. She snorted at him. 

“Hello, bitch.” Marinette responded. She noticed he was hiding something behind his back. She wondered what it was. 

“Ooh, careful.” He warned her, jokingly. “Someone might think you hate me.”

“Careful yourself, Wonder Freak.” She flicked him in the side of the head, and he scowled. “Someone might think you love me.” He climbed down, and showed her what he brought with him. 

“I made it. For you.” She pulled the flower out of his hands, and inspected it in admiration. 

“You made the flower?”

“The blue is the same color as your eyes, and the black tips for your cute hair.” He explained, and she giggled, her face burning red. 

“Thank you.” She squeaked. 

Sure, they had been dating for months, but he still managed to fluster her yet. 

“Awe, did I make you blush?”

“No.” She scrunched up her mouth to pretend like she wasn’t smiling as she looked down at the balcony floor. Hm, what a mighty interesting floor this was here. 

“I did!” He cheered, putting a black gloved hand under her chin and gently making her look up at him. She stuck her tongue out at him. “I made the ever cold and rude Marinette blush!” he smirked, and she felt her stomach do those stupid fucking flips. 

It was almost like he knew what that awul smirk did to her. 

Fuck him. 

“What are you thinking about?” He asked, and she wished that mask didn’t cover his pretty eyes. 

“Pushing you over the railing.” She said as sweetly as possible. 

He cracked a smile, a genuine one, and she gently set her flower down on the table. 

“And then what?”

“After I push you?”

“Yeah.” He was still smiling, slightly. “After you push me. Then what?” She bit her lip pretending to think. 

“I’m gonna stick the flower in a book. Press it, make it last forever.” She shrugged, and he moved his hand so that he was holding her cheeks in both of his hands. 

“Forever?”

“Yeah, forever.”

“Is that what you want?” Well that went deep quick.

“Yeah.” He made another suspicious face, and then squished her face so her face was all puffy. “Hey!” Was what she tried to say. ‘Ha-arggh’ was what it probably sounded like.

He laughed, and she scowled at him as he let go, but she couldn’t stay mad at him very long. 

“Tell anyone about this and I will spray paint your uniform yellow and call you Big Bird for a month.” She growled, and he tried to fight a snicker. 

“Sorry. You’re just so cute when you’re upset.”

“I bet the last thing you’ll see is damn cute then when I push you over the railing.” She wanted him, jokingly. 

“Then I’ll fall while falling in love.” He said cheesily. 

She burst into laughter, not seriously thinking he was capable of being this ridiculous. 

“You are so fucking dumb.” She said through giggles.

“Dumb? I thought that that was pretty good for sming up for it on the spot.”

“You are literally the worst.”

“Am not.” He scrunched his nose at her in defiance.

“Are too.” She bopped him on the nose.

“Fuck you.” She didn’t have to see the eyeroll to know it was there. 

“I plan on it.” She winked, and that got a reaction out of him. He crossed his arms and huffed, looking away from her. She gave a small victory shimmy. 

“Oh my god I think I love you.” She poked him in the nose again.

“Careful. People could be around. And I have a boyfriend who I love very much, thank you.” It was her turn to do the evil smirk. 

“Oh? A boyfriend?” Robin feigned offense. 

“Mh, and he’s the best.” She crossed her arms like it was a challenge. Like as if she were gonna make him challenge himself for her affection. 

“Well he must be _ some  _ man to have charmed the likes of you.” She rolled her eyes at him, and gently pushed on his shoulder. 

“You are the worst.” She giggled, and grabbed her flower before heading back inside. She mouthed at him, _ ‘I’ll see you in a few.’ _ He smiled in response.

A few minutes later, Black Cat and Robin could be found wrapped up in each other on some random rooftop. 

  
  



	58. Chapter 58

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE I'M BACK
> 
> AND I FINALLY PLOTTED AN ENDING TO THIS THAT I ACTUALLY LIKE AND COULD POTENTIALLY LEAVE ROOM FOR A SEQUEL IF REQUESTED. I'M SO PROUD OF MYSELF.
> 
> ALSO ALSO FREAKING PLOT TWIST BITCHES I'M SO PROUD OF MYSELF FOR THINKING THIS UP. PLEASE ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Marinette looked at the mess around her, and sighed. 

This was going to take a while. 

She had been commissioned by Jagged again, to design the next tours tour-exclusive t-shirt designs. 

She had picked black t-shirts to try and make screen prints of, but now the problem occurred that the whole apartment now smelled like chemicals. 

“Are you sure this was a good idea?” Conner gave her a sideways look. 

“No.” She answered confidently. “I’m not.”

She ended up making nineteen different shirts over seven designs, all on black t-shirts, of course.

She set out her finally dried shirts on the floor in groups by design, and then organized them as small, medium, and large. 

She sighed. 

This was going to be a long process. 

“Yo. Bitch.”

“What. Bitch.” Jon responded. 

“I need a professional opinion.”

“On?”

“Silly t-shirts.” There was a silence on his end. 

“We’re on our way over.” He hung up without saying goodbye, and she swore he could hear him running for his keys from here. 

* * *

Ten minutes later, Jon and Bella showed up. Apparently, Tim and Damian had somehow also gotten the news, and showed up as well. Bella gave her good criticism, but Tim refused to think any of it was less than exceptional. 

But maybe he was just a little bit biased. To Jagged and Marinette. 

“These are really really good, M, I like all of them.”

“Yeah, but I need to pick the best three.” She complained. 

“These two.” Bella picked out one that was a silhouette print of Jagged and one that was an outline of the album art but with rough overlapping lines instead of, you know, a picture. 

Finally, after nearly half an hour of debate, she picked the best three designs and sent the small medium and large shirts folded up in a box to whoever it was that Penny wanted them sent to. 

She saved the stencils out to be able to send them to whatever company was going to be making fancy industrial copies of them. 

All with her logo on them, of course. 

And if she found her logo missing in the final product she was going to pitch a fit.

* * *

Marinette tapped her tablet pen to her chin as she sat at the kitchen island, wondering what she could draw to cure her boredom. 

Maybe she could make herself a weird dress. 

She did love making weird dresses. 

Or maybe she could bug Tim into playing model for her. 

She pulled out her phone, then thought about how much time it would take up. 

Did she have enough time to start this project before the new school year started and she had to move everything? She didn’t know. 

“Hey, Conner?”

“Yeah kiddo?”

“When does school start up again? I only moved here a few weeks  _ after  _ school started, so I’m not sure I moved back into the international student dorms, because I didn’t do it at the normal date, so-” She noticed him stiffening with confusion. “What?”

“Wait a second, Marinette, they didn’t… tell you?” Conner looked a little offended, honestly. 

“No, no one told me the normal move-in date, it never came up in conversation.” She shook her head, equally confused. 

“No, I mean, your parents… How long did you _think_ you were here for?” 

“The summer? I thought you were watching me for the summer, and then I would go back to school in the fall and then-”

“Marinette, you’re here permanently.” He informed her. She blanked in complete confusion. “Your parents changed the plan last-minute. They said they would tell you, talk it over with you, but apparently, they didn’t. That’s… god, that pisses me off so much.” Conner looked ready to break something. “M, they gave you up. Like, completely. I’m not just a temporary guardian, I legally adopted you. _I thought you knew that._ I thought you knew, and that you never asked about it because it was a sore topic and you didn’t _want_ to.”

She had not known that. 

She had not known that at all. 

She had thought that at the end of the summer she would go back to the international dorms, go back to being her parents kid, and go back to planning on what she would do when she finally got back to Paris. 

But it looked like she wasn't going back to Paris. 

Or back to her parents. 

Or any of that. 

Her world just got turned upside down. 

“I… I have to…” She didn’t know what she had to do. 

She just headed for the balcony, and sat down.

She breathed in the cold outside air of nighttime in the dark city, and sat cross-legged. 

She pulled the hood of the huge black sweatshirt up onto her head. 

She felt Plagg zoom into her pocket. 

She rubbed her thumb over his tiny kwami head in her pocket, not letting any possible neighbors see. 

She wondered if she should cry. Should she cry? Was that a normal thing kids did when they found out the people who had loved them their whole lives suddenly seemed to give up on them? Yeah, that seemed pretty normal. 

She felt a few tears start to form in her eyes as she tied to bite her lip to hold them back. 

“Hey.” Conner walked out and sat on a lawn chair Tim had found somewhere that he had brought back. 

She didn’t respond. Her mind was still racing with confusion and hurt and anger and betrayal. 

“I know it’s dumb to ask if your ok. You are clearly not ok. So asking would just be stupid.” He offered. She nodded ever so slightly. “Do you want me to tell you why they asked me to do this?” She shook her head at first, but then stopped before nodding. “Are you sure? You looked like you were gonna say no for a second.”

“I’m sure.” Her voice didn’t sound like her own. He sighed.

“They told me they didn’t feel like they were good enough for you anymore. They were worried that they were making you unsafe, and they felt guilty about the idea of you returning to a nightmarish mess.” He paused, and that left room for her to cut in. 

“Don’t tell me they loved me.” She choked on her own words. “That will make everything worse.”

“Ok.” She expected him to leave. He didn’t. 

“If I mess up…” Her voice cracked. “Will you send me away?” She heard a sharp intake of breath. But she didn’t look at him. 

“Nope. Never. Literally not ever. Not only would Damian kill me, Jon would probably kick my ass.” She let out a sigh, almost in place of a laugh. 

Almost. 

“And I can tell…” He took a second to gather his thoughts. “You’re not the kind of person who wants to be left alone when you get upset. You like having people around that you can rely on. So I’m not going to leave you alone, and I already messaged your friends. Well, Damian and Jon. I figured you would like those two the most.” She slowly nodded. 

She stared at the people walking on the sidewalk a hundred feet below. 

People with places to go and people to see and errands to run. 

No one went places without reason. 

Marinette couldn’t help but wonder what their reasons were. What they had done to have that reason. What their life stories were that all led them to living in Gotham. What made them tick. 

Everyone lived a wildly different life. Everyone led extremely different lives. Every person on earth had different experiences than every other person. 

And this was her experience. 

She had been sent to Gotham by her parents to get away from Paris where she had been relentlessly bullied, and now she’s been abandoned by her parents who insist they love her, and then been adopted by an alien clone while thinking she had not been and also her boyfriend was one of the richest people in America. 

What a life this was turning out to be. What a weird, sad, strange, and yet somehow totally awesome life. 

She had no idea if she was mad or not. 

Yeah, she was pissed, her parents, the one’s she had known her whole life, just fucking left her with someone they had never met. 

Sure, she had vouched for Conner, they knew he was a good person, but still. 

The thought as a concept was a bit harsh. 

* * *

She had no idea how long she stared at the street before a blue and red blur popped up next to her. 

“Sorry we’re late we were fighting some guys down at the docs.” She hardly registered Jon picking her up like she weighed nothing, which to him, she did, and dragging her inside.

“Spots off. What happened?” Damian, apparently, did not get the memo.

He put a hand on her head, and she leaned on him, still somehow holding onto her best friend's hand at the same time. 

“Not sure.” She mumbled into his chest. 

“Not helpful.” He pulled her over to the couch. 

She squished herself in between them, and closed her eyes. She just existed in the moment, feeling their presences, letting them comfort her as she tried to sort out her feelings. 

These were a lot of feelings. 

And not all of them she knew what to do with.   
  



	59. Chapter 59

Ok, so, um, I kinda owe everyone an explanation. 

I write super randomly. I upload a metric fuckton of content at once, never finish any of it, and never seem to have any real end to anything I post. 

That's because I have [DID](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder). Dissociative Identity Disorder. 

I have several different people in my head, they take over randomly, and they all have their own names. 

More than that, they all have their own lives. Likes, dislikes, interests, hobbies. They kind of are their own people. 

I'm so random because only _one_ of these people likes fan fiction. Most of them like stories, but only one of them writes and posts. 

I apologize that these are so random, but my excuse is that I'm only posting when that one alter is in charge of the body and what it's doing. 

One day one of these alters may up and delete the whole account if they decide it's necessary, and the alter who created it will be absolutely livid lmao, but the one who delete's it won't be the one who created it. 

And one day one of the other alters may delete a work if they think the dedication to it is taking too much space in my head, and I can't control that. 

These people in my head, they exist to decide what's right and wrong, and quite often they disagree. 

I'm sorry this is so weird, you don't really have to understand it, this is just me giving an explantation as to why I seem to disappear so often. And why when I come back, I come back and post things all at once. 

My bad. 

Sincerely, someone who is definitely _not_ named Jae lmao. 

Also really really sorry for mass posting this onto like so many works. I don't think I should do that????


End file.
